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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/williamsilentOOmial 



WILLIAM THE SILENT 



HEROES OF ALL TIME 



FIRST VOLUMES 



Alexander the Great. By Ada Russell, M.A. 
(Vict.) 

Augustus. By Rene" Francis, B.A. 

Alfred the Great. By A. E. McKilliam, M.A. 

Jeanne d'Arc. By E. M. Wilmot-Buxton, 
F.R.Hist.S. 

Sir Walter Raleigh. By Beatrice Marshall. 

William the Silent. By A. M. Miall. 



Other volumes in active preparation 




VlLLIAM ESCAPES FROM THE BURNING CAMP"— Page 113 



WILLIAM 
THE SILENT 



BY 



AGNES M. MIALL 



AUTHOR OF ROBERT THE BRUCE ETC. 



With Frontispiece in Color and Eight 
Black-and- White Illustrations 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



JHi- 

,W?M S 



Copyright, 191 4, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All Rights Reserved 



SEP ('21914 

SLA3S0351 



TO 

MY FAIRY GODMOTHER, 

WHOSE GIFTS TO ME HAVE BEEN SO MANY, 
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 



Contents 



I. Boyhood and Youth . 
II. The Early History of the Netherlands 

III. The Reign of Charles V 

IV. The Turning Point 
V. The Prince and the Cardinal 

VI. The Beggars 

VII. The Increase of the Protestants 
VIII. The Image Breaking . 

IX. Open Rebellion . 
X Coming and Going 

XI. Preparing for the Struggle 
XII. The First Campaign . 

XIII. Utter Defeat 

XIV. The Darkest Hour 
XV. The Beggars of the Sea 

XVI. The Year 1572 . 
XVII. 'Mid Siege and Massacre 
XVIII. The Going of Alva 
XIX. Mook Heath and Leyden 
XX. Charlotte of Bourdon 
XXI. The Hour of Success . 
XXII. The Renewal of War . 

7 



PAGE 

13 

21 

29 

35 

43 

49 

55 

61 

67 

73 

79 

85 

91 

97 

103 

109 

117 

123 

129 

137 

143 

149 



William the Silent 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIII. A Revolution and a Victory .... 155 

XXIV. The Union of Utrecht 161 

XXV. Varying Fortunes 167 

XXVI. False Francis .173 

XXVII. The Stroke of the Assassin 181 

XXVIII. A Great Man's Death 187 



Illustrations 



William Escapes from the Burning Camp (p. 113) Frontispiece / 

PAGE 

He was Appointed General-in-Chief of the Emperor's 

Forces 18 

Philip II Receiving a Deputation from Holland . 36 V 

The Prince Met the Rebels 70 

The Last Moments of Count Egmont ..... 82 

The Dog . . . Awakened the Prince in the Nick of Time . 114 

An Episode in the Spanish Fury. ..... 144 

The Prince's Steps were Dogged by Would-Be Assassins . 170 

The Death of William the Silent in 1584 .... 190 

Map of the Netherlands . . . . . . .11 



The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears, 
The deeds of heroes and the crimes of kings. 

Robert Louis Stevenson 



A sudden wakin 9 , a sudden weepin 9 , 

A III suckin, a III sleepin, 

A cheers full joys an 9 a cheeVs short 

sorrows, 
With a power of faith in gert to- 
morrows. 

Eden Philpotts 



CHAPTER I: Boyhood and 
Youth 

NEARLY four hundred years ago, when 
King Henry VIII sat on the English throne, 
there stood a strong castle on a hill-side 
in the German province of Nassau, From the little 
river Dill, which flowed down the valley on one side 
of it, and from the sleepy village or "burg" clustered 
under its sheltering heights, this ancient stronghold, 
with its frowning towers, battlements and gateways, 
took its name of Dillenburg. The green and fertile 
country around belonged to the lord of the castle, 
and he had the rights of a ruler, under the Emperor 
of Germany, over the village. 

Into this quiet old country castle on its rounded 
hill-top there came, one April day in the year 1533, 
a baby boy — quite an ordinary mite in every way. 
No one guessed then all that the helpless little 
one would do when he came to manhood, or that 
centuries after his death his name would be held 
in loving reverence by a nation living far from 
quiet Dillenburg. 

Little William, as his parents christened him after 
his father, was the eldest child of Count William of 
Nassau (called "the Elder" and "the Rich") and 
of his second wife, Juliana of Stolberg. Twelve 
years before the child was born, in 1521, Martin 
Luther had gone to the Diet or Council of Worms 
and earned for himself and his followers the name 
of "protestants" by protesting against the abuses 
of the Church of Rome. Count William the Elder, 
who was present at the Diet, heard Luther's speech 

13 



JVilliam the Silent 

and was much impressed by it. It was a very long 
time, notwithstanding, before he could bring him- 
self to renounce the Catholic faith, and it was only 
in the year of his son's birth that he finally cast in 
his lot with Luther's party. Curiously enough, in 
spite of his change of religion, the baby William 
was christened with Roman Catholic and not with 
Protestant rites. 

For the first few years of his life the little boy led 
a very quiet and happy existence at Dillenburg. 
He soon had no lack of playmates, for the Nassau 
circle gradually increased until Count William had 
a large family of five sons and six daughters (another 
daughter, the eldest, died in infancy) . Besides these 
eleven children there were several step-sisters and 
brothers, for both William's parents had been 
married before. 

Juliana of Stolberg, the mistress of the castle 
and mother of these children, was a very good and 
noble woman, and it is certain that William owed 
to her influence and example many of the fine quali- 
ties that made him what he was in after life. For a 
sixteenth-century lady the Countess was unusually 
learned and cultured, for it was a time when much 
attention was generally paid to the education of 
women. So highly were Juliana's learning and 
wisdom esteemed by all who knew her, that many 
neighbouring families of noble birth sent their sons 
and daughters to receive a few years' training under 
her care. So Dillenburg Castle was always crowded 
with young people, and the old walls re-echoed to 
the sound of children's voices. 

William was eleven years old when an event 

14 



Boyhood and Youth 

happened which changed his quiet home life entirely. 
This was the death of his cousin, Rene of Nassau, 
titular Prince of Orange, who was wounded in battle 
in July, 1544, and died shortly afterwards. Rene 
had no son to succeed him as ruler of the small 
French principality of Orange, which had come to 
him through his mother, Claudia of Orange-Ch41ons. 
Therefore he thought it wise to make his will before 
leaving home for the battle-field under the banner 
of his master, the Emperor Charles V. 

Rene's nearest relative was his father's brother, 
Count William the Elder, but the Count was a 
Protestant, while Ren^was staunchly loyal to the old 
faith; so the Prince passed over his uncle's claim, 
and, by special permission of the Emperor, he made, 
in soldier-fashion, a short will, leaving Orange and 
his vast Dutch estates around Breda to the Count's 
eldest son, William the younger. 

It was on June 20th that he thus disposed of his 
property. Just a month later he died of a wound 
received during a skirmish at St Dizier, in France, 
which country the Emperor had invaded to quell 
the power of its king, Francis I. 

Thus, at eleven years old, young William of Nas- 
sau, living his sheltered life in a remote German 
castle, became Prince of Orange and one of the rich- 
est noblemen in Flanders. His French estate had 
been confiscated by Francis I, and he never lived 
there, but his property in the Netherlands was very 
extensive and brought him in huge sums of money. 

In spite of his title of "the Rich," his father was 
often hard pressed for money with so large a family 
to feed and educate, so the news of the eldest son's 



William the Silent 

good fortune was received at Dillenburg with great 
joy. But to the dismay of this Protestant household 
it was soon made clear that by the terms of Rent's 
will the young Prince was made a ward of the Empire, 
which meant that he was to be educated how and 
where the Emperor directed, and as aRoman Catholic. 

Rene had laid down these conditions in order to 
ensure that no Protestant should succeed him, and 
they explained his reason for cutting his uncle, the 
Count, out of the succession. The Nassaus quickly 
found that however much they might dislike this 
regulation, there was no escape from it, and in the 
end they were forced to accept it as philosophically 
as they could. 

A few months later the little Prince left Dillenburg 
for Breda, near which place his large Flemish estates 
were situated. There was a house belonging to the 
Orange family in the sleepy little Dutch town, and 
William made his new home there under the super- 
intendence of three guardians appointed by the 
Emperor. They were all devout Catholics, and hence- 
forth the boy was bred in the faith of Rome. 

Separated though he was from his family, the 
next three or four years passed very pleasantly to 
the young ward of the Empire. A great deal of 
his time was taken up by his lessons, at which he 
and two other boys of high rank — the Counts of 
Westerburg and Isenburg — worked diligently under 
the guidance of a tutor. 

For the time in which he lived William received 
an unusually good education, especially in languages, 
for he learnt to speak and write five different tongues 
— German, French, Flemish, Spanish and Latin. 

16 



Boyhood and Youth 

His life was not all lessons, by any means. He 
passed much of his time at Brussels, where the court 
lived, and where he was petted by the kind old 
Regent, Queen Maria, and made much of by the 
Emperor himself, when that great man was in the 
Netherlands, and neither fighting nor travelling. 
William soon became one of Charles V's pages, and 
was even permitted to be present at solemn State 
meetings of the cabinet, saying nothing and sitting 
forgotten in a corner, while he drank in with eager 
ears the discussions of the experienced men about 
him. It is easy to imagine how in after years he 
recalled portions of what he then heard, and turned 
the knowledge to good account in his country's 
service. 

When next the boy saw his father he was a tall 
stripling of fifteen, and a long way on the road to 
manhood, for in those days children grew up earlier 
than they do now. Count William and the Prince 
of Orange met at the Diet of Augsburg, whither the 
father had journeyed in the interests of a family 
lawsuit, and the son had come in the train of the 
Emperor. William was now thought old enough 
to bear his part in the Nassau family councils, and 
his admittance to them on that visit to Augsburg 
marked the beginning of the long period during 
which he was friend, counsellor and second father to 
his younger brothers and sisters. 

Two more uneventful years passed, and the Prince 
grew to manhood. A brilliant and fortunate life 
seemed opening before him, for he had every advan- 
tage in his favour — birth, friends, favour in high 
places, wealth, independence and talent. His ex- 

i7 



W'illiam the Silent 

ceptional prospects and high character attracted 
the attention of Maximilian, Count of Buren, 
and in 1550 this nobleman proposed that Orange 
should wed his only child and heiress, Anne of 
Egmont. The two young people were about the 
same age, and the match was a very suitable one in 
every way. The wedding was celebrated with great 
pomp on July 6th, 1551. 

In view of the Prince's marriage it was considered 
proper that he should have a household of his own, 
but as both bridegroom and bride were very young, 
a governor, in the person of Jerome de Perrenot, 
Seignior of Champagny, was appointed to have a 
general supervision over the youthful establishment. 

There was some strife over this post, certain people 
interested in the Prince's affairs urging that the 
Seignior was not sufficiently elderly and dignified 
for the position, but in the end the appointment 
was secured to him by the influence of his brother, 
Anthony Perrenot, then Bishop of Arras. Jerome 
proved to be of no importance in the Prince's life; 
Anthony, who is better known by his later title of 
Cardinal Granvelle, began by being William's good 
friend and counsellor, but ended by becoming one 
of his bitterest foes. 

The Prince spent the next four years almost en- 
tirely in camp or on the battle-field. The Emperor 
was continually at war with France, and Orange, al- 
though so young, was one of his most trusted officers. 
William saw very little of his young wife, but wrote 
to her often. In frequent letters, penned in French, 
and always opening "My Wife," and ending "Your 
very good husband, William of Nassau," he told her 

18 




'HE WAS APPOINTED GENERAL-IN-CHIEF OF THE EM- 
PEROR'S FORCES"— Page 16 



Boyhood and Youth 

of his fervent wish that he could be at her side and 
grumbled boyishly over the hardships of camp life. 
Though he was not a born soldier, and disliked his 
military work rather than otherwise, he showed so 
much ability that his promotion was rapid, and in 
1554, before he was twenty-one, he was appointed 
general-in-chief of the Emperor's forces — a very 
high position for one so young. 



19 



I beheld proud Maximilian, kneel- 
ing humbly on the ground; 

I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting 
with her hawk and hound. 

Henry W. Longfellow 



CHAPTER II: The Early 
History of the Netherlands 

TO gain a clear understanding of the in- 
fluences and forces that were at work in 
the Netherlands during almost the whole 
lifetime of William, Prince of Orange, and for many 
years after his death, it is needful to go back to very 
early days and, beginning there, to take a short 
survey of the history of the Low Countries. By 
doing so we shall be able to understand many things 
that would only perplex us if we met with them for 
the first time in William's life story. 

At the dawn of history the portion of north-west 
Europe known in later centuries as Flanders, and in 
our own day forming the two kingdoms of Belgium 
and Holland, was a flat, marshy triangle of country. 
To a large extent it was below the level of the sea 
at high tide, and was frequently flooded by the 
ocean beating on its western shore, and by the rivers 
which flowed through it. 

In the time of the Romans, Batavia, as this terri- 
tory was then called, was occupied by two distinct 
tribes, of different race, character, and habits. To 
the south the Belgse, often mentioned by Caesar in 
his Commentaries, were Celts or Gauls, like the in- 
habitants of the part of Europe we now call France; 
but the northern Nervii were of Teutonic origin and 
had come to Batavia from the German country be- 
yond the Rhine. 

The two races had very little in common, and 
never became bound into one nation, for in charac- 
ter, religion, and life they were the opposites of one 

21 



William the Silent 

another. It is very important to remember this 
great difference between them, for we shall see as 
we read more of the history of the Netherlands that 
this strong race contrast and disunion were at the 
root of all the troublous times in which William of 
Nassau lived. 

The Romans conquered the inhabitants of 
Batavia, as they conquered almost all the then 
known world, but it cost them harder fighting than 
any of their other triumphs; for these Northmen, 
who had always to struggle for bare existence in 
their savage, water-logged land, had grown hardier 
and more warlike than any other tribe in Europe. 
Caesar himself wrote with admiration of their bold- 
ness and daring. They were never required to pay 
tribute to Rome, like all other conquered nations, 
and some of their bravest fighters were formed into 
the Batavian cavalry, which won great glory fighting 
for Rome, and became the Emperor's personal 
bodyguard. 

Many Batavians of noble birth were sent to the 
city of the conquerors to be educated, and among 
them was a youth whose real name is lost to us, for 
he took the Roman one of Claudius Civilis. After 
serving twenty-five years in the Roman armies he 
and his brother were falsely accused of conspiracy 
against the Empire, and his brother was executed. 
Civilis escaped, burning with hatred for the Romans, 
and went back to his native land resolved to free 
Batavia. He was brave, talented, and eloquent, 
and for a little while the revolt was within an ace of 
success. Then the conquerors gathered a strong 
force, and Batavia was crushed anew. 

22 



The Early History 

After the gradual weakening and final fall of the 
vast Roman Empire, the Batavians came under the 
dominion of the great and powerful race called the 
Franks. Originally a horde of barbarians who had 
been forced out of the Rhine country by the incursion 
of other tribes from the east, the Franks made their 
way westward, and settled in Gaul (which then 
became Frankland or France) and the southern parts 
of Batavia. Northern Batavia was occupied by the 
Frisians, a very bold, liberty-loving race, dwelling 
to the north-east, and the old Batavian nation dis- 
appeared, having been partly exterminated in 
fighting for Rome, and partly merged into the Frank 
and Frisian tribes. 

The latter people, the "free Frisians/ 5 as they 
were called, fought for centuries to liberate them- 
selves from the sway of the Franks. But in the end 
they were conquered, in spite of the words in their 
statute book, "The Frisians shall be free, as long as 
the wind blows out of the clouds and the world 
stands/ 5 They were even forced to accept Chris- 
tianity by one of the Frankish sovereigns, whose 
hard fighting had won for him the name of Charles 
the Hammer. There is a story which tells how Rad- 
bod, the Frisian king, was lost to Christianity be- 
cause of a bishop's imprudent reply. 

Radbod had consented to be baptized, and when 
he had already put one leg into the font (for in those 
days a convert went bodily into the water) a sudden 
thought occurred to him. 

"Tell me where my forefathers are at this mo- 
ment/ 5 he demanded of Bishop Wolfran, who was 
waiting to perform the rite. 

23 



TVilliam the Silent 

"With all other unbelievers in hell/' replied the 
Christian sternly. 

Radbod's eyes grew dark, and he withdrew his 
leg from the font in much anger. 

"Then will I rather feast with my ancestors in 
the halls of Woden" (chief of the heathen gods) 
"than dwell with your little starveling band of 
Christians in heaven/' he said; and nothing would 
shake his resolution, though after his death his 
subjects accepted Christianity. 

As time went on the once powerful Frankish kings 
grew weaker and less capable of ruling their extensive 
possessions, and bit by bit the great Frankish empire 
went to pieces, just as Rome had done. In the 
tenth century the Netherlands passed from France 
to Germany, but their actual ruler was a certain 
Dirk I, whom the French king had a few years before 
created hereditary Count of Holland. 

Holland (originally "hollowland," because of its 
swamps and bogs), was only a portion of the Nether- 
lands. There were also the provinces of Lorraine, 
Flanders, Luxemburg, and others, each governed by 
its own count or duke, and each having its own 
unimportant history. The different rulers perpetu- 
ally quarrelled among themselves, and war with one 
another was their chief occupation. Meanwhile the 
towns developed two important industries, the fish- 
eries and the wool trade, and grew more flourishing 
every year. 

During the thirteenth century a natural event 
occurred which set a permanent gap between the 
Frisians of the north and the rest of the Netherlands. 
During a terrific storm the waters of the North Sea 

24 



The Early History 

rolled in for miles over Holland, and formed the 
wide Zuyder Zee, where previously there had been 
thousands of acres of meadows and quiet Dutch 
villages. 

At last the descendants of Dirk I died out, and the 
government of Holland, which now included the 
neighbouring province of Zeeland, passed to the 
Count of Hainault. Fifty years later, in 1355, 
William IV of Hainault died childless; he was 
succeeded by his nephew Duke William of Bavaria, 
and he by his son Albert. On the death of Albert 
the sovereignty descended to his son William, who 
had married Margaret of Burgundy. 

William's only child and heiress was his daughter 
Jacqueline, who was seventeen years old at the time 
of her father's death in 1417. Her cousin Philip 
the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who desired the 
sovereignty for himself, set up civil war in the 
dukedom, defeated Jacqueline's followers, and made 
her lady forester of the provinces over which she 
should have ruled. The unlucky princess died in 
1437 of a broken heart, and there was no one left 
to dispute the usurper's rights to the lands he had 
wrested from his own kinswoman. 

The House of Burgundy, to which Philip belonged, 
was a very powerful one, accustomed always to have 
its own way, and brooking no interference from its 
subjects. The province of Burgundy is now part 
of France, but in those d?ys it was a separate king- 
dom, over which the head of the Burgundian house 
reigned supreme, without considering either his 
subjects' rights or those of the King of France, with 
whom he was often at war. 

25 



TVilliam the Silent 

It is not surprising that Philip, reared with these 
notions, turned out to be very far from deserving 
his title of "the Good." He bought the county of 
Namur from its ruler and usurped the duchy of 
Brabant. In a few years, by purchase, inheritance, 
or conquest, he was master of all the seventeen 
provinces that made up the Netherlands. 

Over this wide area he ruled tyrannically, refusing 
the towns their rights, breaking his solemn promises, 
embarking on a disastrous war with England, and 
breeding universal discontent among his subjects. 
Revolts against his authority were unsuccessful, 
and the country breathed a deep sigh of relief when, 
in 1467, death relieved it of the "good" and well- 
hated duke. 

Philip was succeeded by his son, Charles the 
Headstrong, who proved an even worse sovereign 
than his father. Charles was not content with his 
position as duke, ruling the Netherlands under his 
two overlords, the Emperor of Germany and the 
King of France. His ambition was to have ab- 
solute control over his dominions and to be styled 
king instead of duke; and all his life he schemed 
and worked towards this end. He fought inces- 
santly with France, and cared nothing that to gain 
the means to do so he had to tax, rob, and oppress 
his people. 

Many another country might have resisted this 
tyranny successfully, but unfortunately for the 
Netherlands each of its cities was independent of 
all the others and very jealous of them. The towns 
were too distrustful of one another to unite against 
their Duke, and each was too weak]to fight him alone. 

26 



The Early History 

We shall see presently how in the days of William 
of Orange the jealousy between the different cities 
again prevented their combining against a foe even 
worse than violent and wicked Charles the Head- 
strong. 

In 1474, the bad Duke quarrelled with the Swiss, 
and led an army against them. To his intense rage 
they defeated him in two battles, and shortly after- 
wards he was killed while besieging the town of 
Nancy. For a man who had hoped and dared so 
much his end was a pitiful one. His body was found 
some days later among a heap of corpses, frozen into 
a dirty stream by the cold of two January nights, 

Charles left one daughter, Mary, who, like the 
unhappy Jacqueline her own grandfather had 
despoiled, was not allowed to enjoy her inheritance 
in peace. In this case it was her father's old enemy, 
the King of France, who seized her lands. 

The Netherlanders had hated Charles the Head- 
strong, but they detested and feared the French 
King even more, and for once they banded together 
to support Mary, provided she would rule them 
reasonably. Mary's reply was to grant to the 
Netherlands the Great Privilege, a constitution 
which corresponded to our English Magna Charta. 

Its chief provisions were, that only Netherlanders 
should hold offices in the Low Countries, that taxes 
should not be imposed nor war undertaken without 
the consent of the Estates (Parliament), that no 
person might be imprisoned without just cause, 
and that the Great Council and Supreme Court of 
Holland, which had been abolished by ducal tyranny, 
should be re-established. 

27 



William the Silent 

At the time, Mary may have meant to abide by 
the Great Privilege, or she may only have promised 
to do so in order to secure her subjects' support 
against France. Certain it is that when she was 
safely on her throne and married to Maximilian of 
Hapsburg, she no longer troubled about the solemn 
undertaking she had given to the people. 

Her husband's one object in life was money, and 
he cared very little how or whence he obtained it, 
so it is not surprising that when Mary died and her 
four-year-old son Philip succeeded her, the people 
refused to permit Maximilian to act as his guardian 
and regent. The latter borrowed an army from 
his father, the Emperor of Germany, conquered one 
city after another, fined and slew the burghers, and 
ended by revoking the Great Privilege. 

Then he appointed himself regent to his son, 
and spent the years while the boy was growing 
up in extracting large sums from the unfortunate 
Netherlanders. 

When Philip (surnamed the "Handsome") came 
of age in 1494, the condition of things was very little 
improved, for the young sovereign refused to re- 
establish the Great Privilege. I need not describe 
his reign fully, but may pass on at once to his vastly 
more important son, with whom the history of 
William of Orange's period really begins. 



28 



Nest of Lutheran misbelievers! 
Haunt of traitors and deceivers, 
Stronghold of insurgent weavers, 
Let it to the ground be razed! 

Henry W. Longfellow 

CHAPTER III: The Reign of 
Charles V 

PHILIP the Handsome had married Joanna, 
the eldest daughter and heiress of the King 
and Queen of Spain, and sister of Katherine 
of Aragon, the first of Henry VIII's six wives. Their 
son Charles was born in Ghent, one of the Nether- 
land cities, and was all his life more Flemish than 
Spanish. 

Probably no monarch ever inherited wider posses- 
sions than did Charles V. From his father he 
gained the Netherlands in 1506, through his mother 
he came to the throne of Spain ten years later. Nor 
were the Spaniards and the Flemings his only sub- 
jects, for in 1519 he was elected Emperor of Ger- 
many, largely through the influence of Henry of 
Nassau, brother of Count William the Elder. Be- 
sides this, by a Papal bull he became lord of the 
whole new American world that had recently been 
discovered by Spanish enterprise. 

Charles V was no more of a friend to the Nether- 
lands than his father and grandfather had been, 
though he was far wiser and more powerful than 
either. In 1521 came the beginning of the Reforma- 
tion and the dawn of Protestantism. Luther was 
the pioneer in Germany, and the men who followed 
his teaching transferred their obedience from the 
Pope to their own particular count or duke — an 
arrangement which suited these petty rulers re- 
markably well. 

29 



William the Silent 

In France and the Netherlands Protestantism took 
a different form. John Calvin became the leader 
of the "heretics/' as the Catholics called those who 
adopted the new faith, and Calvin, far from adding 
to the authority of the ruling class, the rich, taught 
that the power which was no longer permitted to 
the Pope should be placed in the hands of the 
people. 

Charles V did not care greatly about religion, 
but he was quite clever enough to see that the 
Calvinists who had cast off the authority of the Pope, 
their spiritual ruler, would soon be tempted to do 
the same with their temporal sovereign — himself. 
To avoid this danger to his power he established the 
Inquisition, which had already proved very success- 
ful in stamping out heresy by fire and sword in Spain. 

Now began a terrible time for the Netherlanders. 
The Spanish inquisitors or "seekers out" were strict 
and bigoted Catholics — hard men without a grain 
of mercy. The Protestants, and all who were 
suspected of being Protestants, were relentlessly 
persecuted, harried from place to place, imprisoned, 
hanged, and burned at the stake. It is said that in 
no part of the world did so many people suffer for 
their religion as in the Low Countries. 

Nor was persecution the only wrong which Charles 
V inflicted on his Flemish subjects. There was 
great jealousy between him and the King of France, 
Francis I, who was about his own age, and the two 
monarchs were constantly at war. It was the 
Flemings who supplied the necessary money, and, 
though the cities were prospering greatly, they were 
very indignant at the injustice which forced them 

30 



The Reign of Charles V 

to pay for a war which they did not desire and which 
could never benefit them. 

At last, in 1539, Charles, who was even harder 
pressed for money than usual, demanded a grant of 
1,200,000 florins, of which one-third was to be 
provided by the city of Ghent. This huge sum was 
needed for the expenses of wars in France, Sicily, 
and Milan, and the citizens of Ghent, in order to 
avoid payment, pleaded that according to Nether- 
land law a grant could only be made if all the ^Estates 
agreed to it. When Charles still insisted they broke 
out into rebellion, and offered their allegiance to 
Francis I. 

Unluckily for them, the French King decided that 
he had more to gain by revealing their proposal to 
the Emperor than by accepting their offer. When 
Charles heard of the action they had taken he was 
furious, and resolved to teach Ghent a lesson she 
would never forget. 

He entered the city without resistance, remained 
inactive for a month till the citizens' fears were 
lulled to rest, and then deprived Ghent of all her 
charters and privileges. At the same time he in- 
sisted on payment of a much larger grant than he had 
at first demanded, executed several of the chief citi- 
zens, and imposed a perpetual yearly fine on the 
burghers. After all this tyranny he remembered 
that he had been born in Ghent, and on that account 
forgave the rebellious city, and refrained from 
further punishment! 

In his younger days, Charles V was an exception- 
ally fortunate man, but as time went on his luck 
deserted him, and he was defeated by all the foes 

3i 



William the Silent 

whom he had begun by crushing. In addition his 
hard work and his extreme greed at table gradually 
ruined his health, and by the time he was fifty-five 
he realized that he must retire from his many 
thrones in favour of a younger and healthier man — 
his son, Prince Philip of Spain. 

Charles determined to make his abdication as 
impressive as possible, and arranged a grand cere- 
monial, which took place at Brussels on October 
25th, 1555. 

Among those present were the new King, Philip, 
his aunt, the Dowager Queen of Hungary, who had 
been Regent of the Netherlands for many years, 
and a vast concourse of nobles and statesmen. The 
Emperor spared no effort to make this parting 
ceremony live in the memories of those who witnessed 
it, and the Prince of Orange was specially summoned 
from camp in order that he might be present. When 
Charles entered the hall of the palace at Brussels, 
in which the abdication took place, it was William's 
shoulder on which he leaned. 

Many other notable men of the day had been 
summoned for the occasion; the Bishop of Arras, 
the Counts of Egmont and Horn, Baron Montigny, 
Brederode the boisterous, the crafty Frisian minister 
Viglius, and many another of rank or importance in 
the Netherlands. 

Several long speeches were made, and Charles V, 
in spite of all his tyrannies, represented himself so 
artfully as having been all that the best of emperors 
could be, that some of the audience were moved to 
tears. He contrived to make his hearers forget his 
demands for money, his treatment of Ghent, his 

32 



The Reign of Charles V 

persecutions, and his disastrous warfare, and made 
them feel that they were losing a father as well as 
a ruler. Then Philip was solemnly presented to the 
assembled multitude as their future sovereign, and 
Orange supported his retiring master out of the hall. 

Whatever his faults — and they were many — there 
was more of a popular hero in Charles than in his 
son and successor. The father at least was bold, 
energetic, and very clever, and in his younger days 
had been a fine and successful general. 

Philip II was twenty-eight at the time of his 
father's abdication — an insignificant-looking man, 
very Spanish in appearance and character, sullen, 
gloomy, and obstinate. While Charles had only 
persecuted the Protestants because he was afraid 
they would refuse to obey him, Philip, who respected 
the lightest wish of the Pope, loathed them for the 
sole reason that their religious beliefs were not the 
same as his own. 

Astonishing as it may seem, he really thought 
that by killing every heretic he could capture he 
was doing the greatest possible service to the rest 
of the world. Such a man was likely to show even 
less mercy to the Netherlands than Charles V had 
done. 



33 



I live for those that love me, 

For those that know me true . . . 
For the cause that needs assistance. 
For the wrongs that lack resistance, 
For the future in the distance, 
And the good that I can do. 

G. L. Banks 



CHAPTER IV: The Turning 
Point 

THE very day after the abdication the Prince 
of Orange quitted Brussels, for there was 
so much to be done in camp that he could 
ill be spared even for so brief an absence. The 
soldiers were discontented, for they were kept short 
of both money and food. William sent many letters 
of complaint, pointing out the hardships endured by 
his men, and the King wrote long replies, but did 
little to remedy the state of affairs. 

In November he appointed his young general a 
Councillor of State, though one cannot help thinking 
that Orange would have preferred money and stores 
to this unlooked-for honour. 

"For," he wrote to his wife, "we are here without 
a penny, and the soldiers are dying of hunger and 
cold, yet they take no more notice of us at court 
than if we were already dead. I leave you to 
picture the amount of patience I am forced to have/ 5 

At last, in February, a truce was signed which 
was to last five years, and the troops were paid and 
dismissed. The Prince came home to Breda to be 
with his wife and children, but his leave of absence 
proved much shorter than he expected, for a few 
months later the King of France broke the truce 
and began the war again. 

Orange was busy fighting all the summer, and in 
the following winter he was kept fully occupied in 
raising money for Philip, who, in spite of his vast 
possessions and the treasure-ships which were con- 
stantly sailing home from the gold mines of the New 

35 



Tf^illiam the Silent 

World, spent so much in bribes and wars that he was 
always heavily in debt. 

During this winter William also spent some time 
at a Diet in Frankfort, which was held to settle the 
succession to the German Empire. In those days 
the emperors of Germany were chosen by election, 
and the sovereignty did not necessarily descend from 
father to son as it does now. 

Philip was very eager to succeed his father on the 
German throne, but to his rage and disgust his uncle 
Ferdinand, brother to Charles V, was elected. 

Orange was still at Frankfort on this business when 
the news of the serious illness of his wife summoned 
him back post haste to Breda. The Princess died 
shortly after his arrival there, leaving two children — 
Philip William, Count of Buren, who was between 
three and four years of age, and Marie, fourteen 
months younger. 

For a while the Prince was plunged in grief, but 
public affairs demanded his attention, and he was 
allowed little time for brooding over his loss. The 
Spanish armies had had decidedly the best of the war, 
and both parties were anxious to make peace. In 
1559 the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis was signed, one 
of its conditions being that Philip, who had been a 
widower since the death of his first wife, Queen Mary 
of England, the year before, should marry a French 
princess. 

The Bishop of Arras and William took the chief 
parts in arranging the peace, and the latter was one 
of the hostages sent to Paris, according to the custom 
of the time, to be the French monarch's prisoner until 
the King of Spain had fulfilled the promises made in 

36 




O 



C 
H 






The Turning Point 

the treaty. Similar hostages were sent by Henry II 
of France to Philip. 

This visit to the French court marked a turning 
point in William's life. At first he was merely a 
gay, extravagant courtier and good-hearted young 
man, and a very creditable story is told of the early 
part of his stay in Paris. 

Each of the four hostages, the Duke of Alva, the 
Duke of Aerschot, Count Egmont and the Prince, 
kept up households of their own during their resi- 
dence on French soil. The servants' quarters in 
Orange's house were so situated that anyone passing 
down the lane outside had a full view of the silver 
plate belonging to the master of the house. The 
articles were very valuable, for as a young man Wil- 
liam was exceedingly rich, spent a great deal on his 
household, and was fond of hospitality and show. 

A thief who noticed the plate came again and again 
secretly to the window, which was only protected by 
a grating, and bit by bit stole a great deal of the plate 
by coaxing it through the grating with a long hook. 
Soon the loss came to light and the man was captured. 
Laws in the sixteenth century were much more severe 
than they are now, and as stealing was commonly 
punished by death, the thief was condemned to die. 

William had heard nothing of all this, for his 
servants did not think it worth while to trouble him 
about so small a matter as the hanging of a thief. It 
chanced that just as the man had been brought out 
to die on a public scaffold, as was then the custom, 
the King and his hunting party passed by, and the 
Prince, who was among the train of courtiers, asked 
what crime the condemned man had committed. 

37 



W^illiam the Silent 

"He stole the Prince of Orange's plate/' was the 
answer given by one of those round the scaffold, 
who did not know that his questioner was the Prince 
himself. 

Orange rode straight up to the King, and begged 
that the man who had robbed him might be pardoned. 
His request was granted, and the thief was so over- 
come by this kind action that directly he was free 
he brought back all the plate that he had stolen. 
His accusers had been unable to find its hiding-place, 
and but for the Prince's pity and goodness he would 
probably never have seen his property again. 

A few weeks later an adventure of a very different 
sort befell the Prince. One June day he was out 
hunting with Henry II in the forest of Vincennes, 
near Paris, when the King, who supposed that this 
favourite courtier of Charles V knew all his son 
Philip's secrets, began to talk of a plan which he and 
that monarch had made together to stamp out 
heresy in all their dominions. There had been 
much persecution already in Spain, France and 
the Netherlands, but now it was to be increased 
tenfold. 

The Prince had heard nothing of this scheme, 
which Philip very well knew would not meet with 
his approval, for though William was a sincere 
Roman Catholic himself, he was one of the very 
few in that age who detested all religious persecution. 
With marvellous self-control he listened to the 
King's remarks without showing any of the sur- 
prise and horror he felt, and Henry never discovered 
the great mistake he had made. 

It was this silence of the Prince's that earned him 

38 



The Turning Point 

the name of "William the Silent/ 5 by which he is 
known to all time and to all fame. It is quite wrong 
to suppose, as people sometimes do, that he gained 
his title because he had a sullen and silent manner. 
On the contrary, he was very gay and agreeable, 
and it was said of him that he made a friend every 
time he raised his hat. 

From this time forward William was never the 
same loyal and devoted servant of the King he had 
shown himself to be hitherto. He found it impossi- 
ble to feel so warmly toward Philip now that he was 
aware of the latter's intentions regarding his Prot- 
estant subjects. As he himself wrote afterward, 
"I confess that from that moment I determined to 
aid in clearing these Spanish vermin [Philip's troops 
from Spain, who were then quartered in Flanders] 
out of the land and I never repented my resolution. 5 ' 

Very shortly after the hunting expedition Henry 
II died, and Orange returned to the Flemish court at 
Brussels. 

He found Philip preparing to leave the Nether- 
lands, a country which he always hated, to return to 
Spain. The King appointed his half-sister, Mar- 
garet, Duchess of Parma, to be Regent in his absence, 
and made Orange Stadtholder, or Governor, of the 
three provinces of Holland (which must not be con- 
fused with the modern country of the same name), 
Zeeland and Utrecht. 

Matters were not going very smoothly, for at a 
meeting of the States-General — a body which in the 
Netherlands took the place of a Parliament — the 
Estates refused to grant the King money unless 
he promised to withdraw the Spanish soldiers who 

39 



Tniliam the Silent 

were over-running the country. Philip was forced 
to yield, and was enraged with Orange, who, he 
knew, was largely responsible for this demand. 

Just as the angry King was stepping on board 
the vessel that was to carry him to Spain, he began 
to reproach the Prince for what had occurred. 
William calmly replied that it was not his doing, but 
that of the Estates, whereupon the King answered, 
in the rudest Spanish he could use: 

"Not the Estates, but you, you, your 

A few months later another grief befell Orange, 
for in October his father, Count William the Elder, 
died, leaving him head of the family. Though he 
had lived apart from them most of his life, William 
was passionately fond of all his relations, and to 
Count John, the second brother, who now inherited 
Dillenburg Castle, he wrote a touching and noble 
letter, saying that though his sisters had lost their 
father they should find another in him. It was a 
promise which he kept most faithfully all his life. 

Meanwhile the Netherlands were in a terrible 
condition, for the Inquisition, vastly more severe 
under Philip II than it had been under Charles V, 
was working havoc in the country. To make mat- 
ters worse, one of Philip's first actions on ascending 
the throne had been to revive a law against heretics 
which his father had made toward the end of his 
reign. 

This Edict of 1550, as it is generally called, was one 
of the cruellest laws against the Protestants that was 
ever devised. It absolutely forbade the reading or 
buying of the Bible (except by priests), or of any 
books written by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and 

40 



The Turning Point 

other leading Reformers, and made it illegal for 
the Protestants to hold meetings of any kind, to 
teach the Scriptures, or even to discuss their beliefs 
with others. 

A person discovered to be guilty in any of these 
particulars was subject to instant death, often accom- 
panied by horrible torture, and the same punishment 
was to be meted out to those who knew of such doings 
and did not report them to the Inquisitors. 

It was the Bishop of Arras who had advised Philip 
to revive the Edict, and when this fact was known 
a wave of hatred against him swept the whole country. 

In the summer of 1559 the Pope sent a bull, or de- 
cree, upholding the Edict, and appointing a number of 
extra bishops and inquisitors to see that it was faith- 
fully carried out. The much-hated Bishop of Arras 
was promoted to the Archbishopric of Mechlin in con- 
sequence of these additional appointments, and it 
was then that popular indignation, which had been 
smouldering for years, suddenly burst forth. 



41 



* You the master rebel of all 
That stir this land to strife," 

Henry Newbolt 



CHAPTER V: The Prince and 
the Cardinal 

THE Prince of Orange, as might be expected, 
utterly disapproved of the new bishoprics, 
and from that time forward he and the 
new Archbishop of Mechlin were bitter enemies. The 
churchman was eager to carry out Philip's bigoted 
schemes of persecution, while William condemned 
them with all his heart and determined that they 
should be stopped. 

It seemed, however, that there was little he could 
do. He and his friends, Egmont, Berghen and 
other nobles, tried in vain to move the Duchess 
Margaret and her advisers; neither pleading nor 
argument had any effect. Philip had appointed 
Orange and Egmont members of the Council of 
State which was to help the Regent to rule, but the 
other three councillors, the Archbishop, Berlaymont 
and Viglius, all favoured the Inquisition, with the 
result that the two friends found themselves always 
in a minority, and could do nothing. 

William's position was at times a very awkward 
one, for, as Governor of Holland, Zeeland and 
Utrecht, it was his duty to carry out the King's com- 
mands in these provinces, and yet often the orders 
he received from Philip were of a kind he thought 
it very wrong to obey. In his correspondence he 
tells how he was commanded "to put to death some 
worthy people suspected of religion [that is, of Prot- 
estantism]. This my conscience would not allow 
me to do and I sent them private warning of their 
danger, holding it right to obey God rather than man." 

43 



William the Silent 

It is difficult to see how an honourable and just 
man like the Prince could have acted otherwise, but 
of course such conduct brought him into suspicion 
at court, and the Duchess of Parma and the Arch* 
bishop, who about this time became Cardinal Gran- 
velle, began to blacken their opponent's char- 
acter in their letters to Philip, so that the King 
watched his movements with ever-growing distrust. 

Orange had now been a widower for some time, 
and as he was only twenty-seven all his relations 
urged him to marry again. He was quite willing 
to do as they wished, and arrangements for his 
second wedding occupied a great part of his time 
during the years 1560-61. 

The lady he had set his heart upon marrying was 
Anne of Saxony, of noble German birth, and orphan- 
niece of Augustus, the powerful Elector, or Prince, of 
Saxony. She was a girl of seventeen, not attractive 
personally, for she was both self-willed and of a violent 
temper, but a tempting match for William, owing to 
her kinship with several important German rulers. 

Unfortunately she and all her relations were 
strong Lutheran Protestants, while her suitor was, 
as we know, a Roman Catholic. This difference of 
religion was a great hindrance in those days, when 
followers of the two faiths were for the most part 
bitter enemies, and for months this circumstance 
delayed the marriage. 

At last, after much difficulty and many wearisome 
set-backs, Anne's relations consented to the match, 
for which she herself and her uncle the Elector were 
both eager. Orange promised that he would not 
interfere with Anne's religious views, and at the same 

44 



The Prince and the Cardinal 

time artfully managed to soothe Philip and the 
Regent, both of whom greatly disliked the idea of 
his marrying a Protestant wife. 

In August of 1561 the Prince of Orange and Anne 
of Saxony were wedded at Leipsic. The ceremony 
was a very magnificent one, almost like that of royal 
persons, and for three days afterward high festival 
was held in the town. Then the Prince took his bride 
home to Breda, whence she wrote to her grandfather 
that she was "as happy as a queen." However, 
the marriage was not fated to end as well as it had 
begun. 

Having thus gained his heart's desire in his private 
life, William set to work to win the accomplishment 
of his greatest wish for the Netherlands. This was 
the abolition of the Inquisition and the withdrawal 
of the Spanish troops. 

You will remember that, before his departure to 
Spain, Philip had promised that these soldiers should 
be sent away; but he had found excuse after excuse 
for leaving them in Flanders, where, of course, they 
were fed, housed and clothed at the country's expense. 

The Prince found the task he had set himself an 
extremely difficult one, for Cardinal Granvelle, who 
was determined at all costs to maintain the per- 
secution of the heretics, became more and more 
dangerous with every year that passed. His influence 
was all-powerful with the Regent, and, through her, 
he practically governed the Netherlands, with the 
assistance of his faithful fellow-councillors, Viglius 
and Berlaymont. 

Supported by the Counts of Egmont and Horn 
and a number of other nobles who had grown very 

45 



TVilliam the Silent 

jealous of Granvelle's supremacy, the Prince of 
Orange wrote many times to the King, telling him 
that the people's wrath was rising fast at the delays 
over the removal of the Spanish troops. When 
letters proved of no avail, he sent more than one 
embassy of nobles to Spain to press the point, and 
at last Philip very reluctantly gave way and with- 
drew the soldiers from the Netherlands. 

Still matters were not greatly improved, and 
William saw that nothing could really be done for 
the country so long as the persecuting and wily 
Cardinal held office. Therefore he devoted all his 
energies to getting rid of the churchman. No other 
person in the Netherlands was so bitterly hated as 
Granvelle, both by the people and the nobles, but 
he was invaluable to Philip and to the Duchess 
Margaret, who wrote to her brother: 

"Cardinal Granvelle is devoted to your Majesty's 
service, and I am glad to give him perfect confidence. 
I cannot say the same of the Prince of Orange and 
Count of Egmont, for they are incited by ambition. 
They have their own interests in view and only want 
to satisfy their passions and give vent to their per- 
sonal hatred for Granvelle/ 5 

The statements about Orange and Egmont we 
know to have been quite untrue. It was by mis- 
representations such as these that the Regent and 
her helpers made the distant King believe that the 
Prince was a dangerous enemy and a traitor. 

Fortunately for the Netherlands Granvelle's reign 
of power was drawing to a close. All through the 
year 1563 Orange, Horn and Egmont worked un- 
ceasingly to procure his dismissal, and the Duchess 

46 



The Prince and the Cardinal 

herself began to tire of the imperious man who all 
but took her own authority out of her hands. 

It was a long, fierce struggle that went on between 
the two men, once such good friends — the crafty, 
brilliant, unscrupulous Cardinal and the equally 
brilliant but honourable young nobleman. At last 
victory fell to the just side, and early in 1564 the 
King wrote Granvelle to insist, though unwillingly, 
upon his resignation. 

One spring day soon afterwards, the Cardinal, 
surrounded by a large body of servants, was driven 
through the great gates of Brussels, never to return. 

Two wild young nobles, the Counts of Brederode 
and Hoogstraaten, were standing at the window of a 
house near the gate as the Cardinal's coach lumbered 
by. In the greatest excitement they rushed into 
the street, jumped both upon the same horse and 
galloped away after the retreating procession. 
Brederode had not even waited to put on his boots, 
for these two were as high-spirited as schoolboys 
coming home for the holidays, and cared for nothing 
save that their foe was on the point of departure. 

All day long they followed the travellers, being 
once so near that they could easily have spoken to 
Granvelle. It sounds a childish thing for grown men 
to do, but we must remember that they had good 
cause to hate the Cardinal, and also that in some ways 
the men of the sixteenth century were more boyish 
than those of the twentieth. 

"That vile animal," as Anthony Perrenot had 
been fond of calling the mass of the people, heaved 
a profound sigh of relief when he was really gone. 
Perhaps folks would have felt less light-hearted if 

47 



William the Silent 

they had known of the dangers that lay in wait for 
the three noblemen who had secured the victory. 

Philip II of Spain was not a man who could be 
thwarted with impunity, and from this time forward 
Orange, Egmont and Horn were marked out for 
bitter punishment when the opportunity should occur. 



48 



Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, 
The beggars have come to town, 

Some in rags and some in tags, 
And some in velvet gowns. 

Nuksery Rhyme 

CHAPTER VI: The Beggars 

WILLIAM soon found that though the 
departure of Cardinal Granvelle had made 
things better, it had not cured them. 
Philip was the most persistent of men, especially 
where religion was concerned, and opposition only 
made his measures more violent. 

The Duchess of Parma, who was subject to sudden 
panics, grew alarmed at the discontent in the country 
when she no longer had Granvelle to support her. This 
agitation on her part is scarcely to be wondered at, 
for every day matters were coming to a worse pass. 

The Inquisition was hated all over the land, and 
public indignation was rising to a dangerous pitch. 
Large numbers of the most peaceable and industrious 
people fled to England, where they might hope to 
have some degree of liberty in their religious opinions. 
Orange, Egmont and other governors of provinces 
resigned their offices, declaring that nothing should 
persuade them to burn and torture innocent Pro- 
testants, whose only crime was that in religious 
matters their opinion differed from that of the King. 

The Regent wrote many times to her brother, 
picturing the state of the country, and assuring him 
that it was becoming impossible to enforce the edicts. 
She entreated Philip to let her resign her office, 
but he was relentless, and insisted that the Inquisition 
should continue in all its severity. He would not 
permit her to give up the regency, much less would 

49 



Trillium the Silent 

he consent to have the States-General, or Flemish 
Parliament, summoned. It was for these two points 
regarding the Inquisition and the States-General, 
that William of Orange and his friends had been 
fighting from the outset. 

This was in May, 1566. By July even Philip 
had grown a little alarmed at the state of affairs 
described in Margaret's reports, and in order to gain 
time he commanded the Duchess to moderate the 
edicts for a while. Nothing was further from his 
thoughts than any lasting mercy toward the Prot- 
estants, as is clearly shown by a letter he wrote 
a few days later to the Pope: 

"As to the pardons publicly announced in my 
name" [the temporary moderating of the edicts], 
one passage ran, "whisper in the ear of His Holiness 
that I do not pretend to pardon in matters religious. 
Assure His Holiness that rather than suffer the least 
thing in prejudice of religion, I will lose my States 
and a hundred lives, for I will not live to be a king 
of heretics. . . . Neither my own peril nor the ruin 
of these provinces, or even of all my dominions, shall 
stop me from fulfilling my duty as a Christian Prince 
to maintain the Catholic faith and the Holy See now 
filled by a Pope whom I love and revere." 

By this time Orange had given up all hope of in- 
fluencing the King to change his attitude toward the 
Protestants. The young Stadtholder now saw quite 
plainly that the overthrow of the Inquisition could 
only be gained by force. While, however, he was 
cautiously considering new plans and projects, some 
of the younger and more hot-headed nobles took 
active measures against the evil. 

50 



The Beggars 



At the close of 1565 a party of them attended a 
feast at the house of a certain Count Culemburg, 
and afterward they drew up a document which is 
known as the Compromise of the Nobles. Those 
who composed it were heated with anger and wine, 
and consequently the paper, which was a condemna- 
tion of the persecutions and a banding together for 
defence against the Inquisition, was expressed in 
very vigorous language. 

The first signers of the Compromise were only 
three — Charles Mansfeld, Henry Brederode and Louis 
of Nassau, and it is believed to have been drawn up 
by Philip de Marnix, Seignior of St Aldegonde, a 
clever, eloquent nobleman who was a close friend of 
the Prince of Orange. 

Count Louis of Nassau deserves some mention here, 
for he took a large share in the struggle which followed. 
He was the third of the five sons of William the 
Elder, being younger than the Prince of Orange and 
John and older than Adolphus and Henry. In 
character he was impetuous, bold and rash, a gay 
courtier and a daring soldier. People have described 
him as "a knight of the olden days/ 5 for he had 
many of the qualities which all true knights-errant 
were supposed to possess. Louis had left Dillenburg 
some time before and entered the service of his elder 
brother, whose most trusted helper he afterward 
became. The Prince was indeed most fortunate in 
his brothers, for one and all helped him in every way 
they could. But then he was the best of brothers 
himself. 

The Compromise was passed on from one noble to 
another, and in a short time it bore many hundreds 

Si 



VTilliam the Silent 

of signatures. William, though in sympathy with 
the aims of the nobles' league, refused to sign the 
Compromise, because he thought that it was too 
angry in tone and was more likely to do harm than 
good. 

At the same time, when the nobles asked to be 
allowed to present a petition, or "Request," for the 
moderation of the Inquisition, Orange advised the 
Regent to give her consent. Perhaps he uttered this 
counsel the more readily because his own efforts 
to form a more moderate league had failed, largely 
owing to shilly-shallying on the part of Egmont. 

William found it a difficult matter at this time to 
curb the violence of the Leaguers on the one hand, 
and to fight the Inquisition on the other. From 
each side he gained, as the old saying goes, "more 
kicks than ha'pence." The nobles were inclined 
to think him a deserter of the cause, while in Mar- 
garet's eyes he was a rebel against the King. 

April 5th, 1566, was a memorable day both in the 
history of the Netherlands and in the life of William 
the Silent. Three hundred noblemen, all gorgeously 
apparelled, marched to the palace to present the 
Request, which was a much more polite document 
than the Compromise. It asked respectfully that 
the edicts might be suspended and the Inquisition 
abolished. 

After a triumphal progress through the streets, 
with people shouting " There go the deliverers of 
our country!" as they passed, the band of nobles 
reached the palace. Here the Request was formally 
presented to the Regent, who promised to give them 
a reply after due consideration. 

5 2 



The Beggars 



When the petitioners had withdrawn, a meeting 
of the Council of State was held to decide what 
answer Margaret should make. The Prince of Orange 
used all the arguments at his command to obtain 
the suppression of the edicts; but Egmont, always 
unready to decide, merely shrugged his shoulders, 
and Berlaymont flew into a rage at the mere mention 
of granting the Request. 

" Madam!" he cried to the Duchess, "is it possible 
that you are afraid of these beggars? They should 
have a cudgel for answer, which would drive them 
down the steps of the palace a great deal faster 
than they came up. 55 

Two other councillors, Aremberg and Meghem, 
agreed with Berlaymont. 

Finally, Margaret gave an evasive reply, promising 
to refer the matter to the King, and meanwhile to 
make the proceedings against heretics rather less 
severe. 

Later in the day many of the young nobles who had 
taken part in the procession marched about the 
streets, very much excited, and boasted loudly of 
their success. As they passed Berlaymont's house 
that seignior happened to be standing at the window 
with Count Aremberg. The former laughed and 
repeated the taunt about the "beggars," which was 
overheard by several of the revellers in the street 
outside. 

That evening the wild leaguers celebrated their 
triumph by a splendid banquet in Count Culemburg's 
mansion. The healths of Orange, Egmont and Horn 
were drunk several times, and the wine circulated 
very freely. Toward the end of the evening the 

53 



William the Silent 

discussion turned on a suitable name for the league. 
Someone suggested that they should call themselves 
the Society of Concord, but Brederode, springing 
up, repeated Berlaymont's sneer to the other guests. 

"They call us beggars!" he cried, "let us accept 
the name. We will fight the Inquisition, but remain 
loyal to the King, even if the struggle takes all we 
possess and reduces us at last to the beggar's wallet." 

Amid loud shouts of applause he took from a page 
a wallet and wooden bowl of the kind carried by all 
beggars at the time; he hung the wallet round his 
neck, filled the bowl with wine, and shouted "Long 
live the Beggars!" It was a cry that was to strike 
terror into brave hearts for many years to come. 

"Long live the Beggars!" echoed all the guests, 
and each in turn drank from the bowl and swore to 
be true to his fellows. One of the company composed 
an impromptu rhyme, which all repeated. It ran — 

"By the salt, by the bread, by the wallet yet, 
The Beggars will not change, no matter how they fret. 5 ' 

In the midst of the excitement Orange, Egmont 
and Horn entered the room to fetch Hoogstraaten 
to a meeting of the Council, and to urge the half- 
drunk revellers to disperse. They were greeted 
boisterously, and were not allowed to escape until 
they had honoured the new toast of "Long live the 
King and the Beggars!" 



54 



The seasons came, the seasons passed, 
They watched their fellows die; 

But still their thought was forward cast, 
Their courage still was high. 

Henry Newbolt 

CHAPTER VII: The Increase 
of the Protestants 

AFTER the great banquet at which the 
Beggars came into existence, their first 
action was to adopt a dress that accorded 
with their name. They chose a costume of coarse 
grey frieze, such as was worn only by the poorest 
people. The doublet and hose were made very 
plainly, with only a single ornament, consisting of a 
device which some thought was a monk's cowl and 
others called a fool's or jester's cap. The monkish 
hood, of course, was a hit at the Cardinal, and the 
cap and bells stood for the foolish gibe which had 
originated the Beggars' name. 

The Regent did not object that her tyrant, the 
Cardinal, should be thus ridiculed, but soon after- 
ward, thinking that the jest was going rather too 
far, she insisted that the emblems should be removed 
from the costume. In their place was embroidered 
either a bundle of arrows or a wheatsheaf, both of 
which signified unity. Nearly all the nobles, as well 
as their servants, wore this livery, and Egmont even 
dined in it at the Duchess's own table. 

When the news spread through the country that 
the Regent had promised to moderate the edicts, 
hope and joy began to revive in people's hearts. 
Those in hiding or across the borders started coming 
back to their old homes when they learnt that 

55 



W^illiam the Silent 

Margaret had ordered the inquisitors to conduct 
their cruel work "modestly and discreetly/ 5 

Unfortunately for the Reformers, an example of 
the Regent's moderation was soon given which 
brought fear anew into every Protestant heart. 

A young Protestant weaver of Oudenarde, Hans 
Tiskaen by name, one day threw down an article in 
one of the churches as a public protest against 
Roman Catholicism. Afterward he went peaceably 
home, but officers of the Inquisition followed and 
arrested him. 

A few days later the unfortunate young man's 
right hand, with which he had committed his offence, 
was cut off, and, as this brutal punishment was not 
thought severe enough, he was then tied to a stake 
in the market-place and slowly burnt to death. It 
is some little comfort to know that through all the 
horrible pain he suffered he behaved with the greatest 
courage. 

About the same time the Duchess of Parma sent 
orders that a Protestant imprisoned in another 
part of Flanders should be done to death in the same 
way as Hans Tiskaen. 

Such cruelties had been practised many times 
before, but now the Netherlanders had put faith in 
Margaret's promises of moderation, and had hoped 
never to witness such heart-breaking sights again. 
It is little wonder that their minds became full of 
an intense bitterness and hatred toward the rulers 
they could neither trust nor respect. 

Yet it shows us more clearly than anything else 
could do of what grand stuff the Reformers and their 
religion were made, that, in spite of all persecution 

56 



Increase of the Protestants 

the Protestants continued to increase in numbers. 
Every, day fresh converts joined the ranks, braving 
death by torture in doing so; and one of the most 
important new believers in the year 1566, a few 
months after the Request, was William of Orange 
himself. 

Born of Lutheran parentage, but educated in the 
older faith, the Prince had for years been a sincere 
though not a strict Roman Catholic. But as he grew 
older his mind turned increasingly to Protestantism. 
Soon the King and the Regent began to suspect 
him of heresy, and in the summer of this year a 
secretary wrote definitely to Philip, " The Prince of 
Orange has changed his religion." 

At first he seems to have been more in sympathy 
with the Lutheran form, which had been adopted 
years before by his father; in later years he was 
undoubtedly attracted to the Calvinists. But all 
through his life William's aim was for a religion of 
compromise, that would do away with the many 
Protestant sects and make for peace in the land. He 
was probably the first man in Europe to set before 
himself the ideal of toleration of all beliefs that we 
enjoy to-day. As he told a messenger sent by the 
Regent to win him back to the Catholic Church, 
"The hearts and wills of men are things not to 
be forced by any outward power whatever.' 5 His 
motto in religious matters might be said to have 
been, "Live and let live." 

As the Protestants grew in numbers they felt ever 
more strongly the need of services of their own. 
All the churches belonged to the Catholics, so men 
and women of the reformed faith began to hear 

57 



William the Silent 

sermons from their ministers out in the fields or 
woods, or, as time went on and their strength in- 
creased, in the market-places of the villages and 
towns. 

"It is said that the first field-preaching in the 
Netherlands took place in June, 1566, and was held 
in the neighbourhood of Ghent/ 5 says Mr Wylie, 
in his History of Protestantism. "The preacher 
was Hermann Modet, who had formerly been a 
monk, but was now the Reformed pastor at 
Oudenarde. 

"The Government 'scout, 5 as the head of the 
executive was named, having got scent of the meet- 
ing, mounted his horse and galloped off to disperse 
it. Arriving on the scene, he boldly rode in amongst 
the multitude, holding a drawn sword in one hand 
and a pistol in the other, and made a dash at the 
minister with intent to apprehend him. Modet, 
making off quickly, concealed himself in a neighbour- 
ing wood. 

"The people, surprised and without arms, appeared 
for a moment as if they would disperse; but their 
courage rallying, they plentifully supplied themselves 
with stones, in lack of other weapons, and saluted 
the officer with such a shower of missiles on all sides 
that, throwing away his sword and pistol, he begged 
for quarter, to which his captors admitted him. He 
escaped with his life, although badly bruised." 

We can imagine that this man was not very 
anxious to stop an open-air sermon again! 

Philip attempted to put down the field-preaching 
by issuing proclamations which threatened death to 
all who took any part in the open-air services. But 

58 



Increase of the Protestants 

Protestantism was growing beyond any control that 
a distant tyrant could exercise, and, in spite of 
the heavy punishments that were threatened, the 
preaching spread till hardly a town or village in 
the Netherlands was free of it. 

It was just at that time, when all Protestant 
minds were irritated beyond endurance by the for- 
bidding of the preachings, and the violent speeches 
of the Wild Beggars, that some of the rougher and 
more excitable Reformers disgraced their cause by 
a childish and wanton act of destruction. 



59 



Before a midnight breaks in storm, 

Or herded sea in wrath, 
Ye know what wavering gusts inform 

The greater tempest's path, 

Rudyard Kipling 



CHAPTER VIII: The Image 
Breaking 

IN the Netherlands the centre of the Protestant 
movement at this time was the city of Antwerp, 
which was overrun with Calvinists, Lutherans 
and Anabaptists. Louis of Nassau, Brederode and 
several other important Beggars were in the city 
in the summer of 1566, and their presence en- 
couraged the Protestants to go further than they 
had ever done before. 

Open-air preachings, which were attended by 
thousands of people, were held everywhere in Antwerp 
and its neighbourhood, and were even protected from 
Catholic interruption by armed men. Hawkers in 
the streets and Protestant tradesmen at their booths 
sold the toy bowls and wallets of the Beggars and 
copies of a medal which the new society had had 
specially made. 

The Regent grew very much alarmed at the state 
of affairs, for although she had ordered that the field 
preachings should be strictly put down, there was no 
man or body of men in Antwerp powerful enough 
to put a stop to them. She knew William's influence 
over the people, and, though she was continually 
telling the King in her letters that Orange was a 
heretic and a traitor, now she begged him to go to 
Antwerp. There he was to suppress the open-air 
services and quiet the excited city. 

Before the Prince set out he told Margaret frankly 
that it was useless to try to stop the preachings, 
for the Protestants must and would have services 
of their own. 

61 



William the Silent 

On his arrival he found that it was impossible to 
carry out the Duchess's instructions in full. The 
best he could do was to arrange that the preachings 
should be forbidden in the city itself, but permitted 
outside the walls, and that an armed force should be 
on the spot to keep perfect order. 

He then wrote to the Duchess telling her of these 
regulations, but added that though Antwerp was 
quiet for the moment much excitement and discon- 
tent still prevailed. He warned Margaret that he 
could only answer for the city so long as he himself 
was there, for nothing but his influence over the 
townsfolk prevented riots and other disorders. 

Unfortunately the Regent had urgent need of him 
in Brussels, and in spite of his words she insisted that 
he should leave Antwerp. The Prince submitted, 
and departed with a foreboding of evil, which came 
to pass only too soon. 

The 18th of August was always a great festival 
in Antwerp, for on that day the Roman Catholics 
celebrated the feast of the Virgin Mary, to whom 
their beautiful cathedral was dedicated. Every 
man, woman and child had a holiday, and it was the 
custom to carry a great image of Our Lady in stately 
procession through the city. 

Usually the people thronged the streets, and 
watched, bareheaded and respectful, the passing 
of the image; but this year a rabble band followed 
the procession, and greeted the statue with scorn 
and rude jests. 

"Mayken, Mayken (little Mary), 5 ' they cried 
loudly, "your hour is come. This is your last walk 
abroad. The city is tired of you." 

62 



The Image Breaking 

So rude did the crowd become that the priests 
thought it wise to make the march through the city 
shorter than usual, and to take the image back to 
the safety of the cathedral. They did not place 
it in its ordinary position at the west door, where 
the people could come to render it homage, but 
behind a strong iron railing in the choir. 

Early the next morning a large crowd collected 
outside the cathedral, and when it was found that 
the image was not in the usual place a howl of deri- 
sion went up from dozens of throats. 

"What, Mayken?" they sneered, "are you terri- 
fied so soon, that you have flown to your nest 
thus early? Beware, Mayken! Your hour is fast 
approaching. 55 

Their next action was to shout many times, "Long 
live the Beggars!" and to bid the lifeless image do 
the same. Then they wandered idly about the 
cathedral, scoffing at the many beautiful things it 
contained. 

If it had not been for one mischievous, ragged 
youth probably nothing more serious would have 
happened. This lad was in a reckless mood, and, 
climbing up into the pulpit, he began to address the 
crowd, mocking the priest's way of preaching so as 
to make it appear ridiculous. 

Some people clapped their hands, others cried 
"Shame!" and tried to pull him from the pulpit, 
others again seized the opportunity to raise a fresh 
shout of "Long live the Beggars!" The young 
man struggled with those who were holding him, 
and still went on with his mockery. At last a 
young Catholic sailor grew so wrathful that he 

63 



TJ^illiam the Silent 

climbed up the back of the pulpit and flung the 
jeering youth violently to the ground. He was 
pulled headlong down himself in the struggle with 
his foe. 

Then tumult reigned. Those in the crowd who 
had encouraged the mock preacher hurried to his res- 
cue, while others upheld the sailor, who, a minute 
later, was wounded by a pistol shot. The people in 
the cathedral were some of the roughest in Antwerp, 
and they had been very much excited for days. Now 
this one little event was enough to change their dis- 
contented feelings to such fury and madness that 
they were hardly responsible for what they did. In 
the dim shadows of the cathedral they fought w T ith 
daggers and cudgels, and it was only with great 
difficulty that they were put outside the building 
at nightfall. 

Next morning the temper of the rabble was even 
more ugly than on the previous day, and no power 
in the city could withstand or even check it. Fierce 
men forced their way into the cathedral, and, 
maddened by all they had suffered from the Catholics 
and the Inquisition, several hundred of them set to 
work to wreck the stately building. 

They dragged down "Mayken," tore off her 
embroidered garments and smashed her into a 
thousand pieces. With the help of axes, bludgeons, 
pulleys and other weapons all the statues were thrown 
down and broken, all the pictures snatched from their 
places, the wine used in the sacraments drunk to 
the health of the Beggars, the gorgeous vestments 
of the priests donned over the shabby garb of the 
rioters. 

64 



The Image Breaking 

Shouting wild, bitter words, men climbed to dizzy 
heights near the roof to break the beautiful stained 
glass windows and wall ornaments. As night came 
on the work of destruction was lighted by women of 
the worst character, who carried the wax candles 
they had seized from the altar itself. When the 
early summer dawn broke, the most magnificent 
cathedral in all northern Europe was utterly despoiled 
and ruined; 

Even this act of wanton destruction was not 
enough to satisfy the rioters' fury. Shouting again 
and again their cry of "Long live the Beggars!" 
the small, frenzied mob of image-breakers dashed 
through the whole of Antwerp. As they went they 
wrecked every church, every statue, shrine or cross 
they found upon their path, and, breaking into the 
monasteries and convents, despoiled them also and 
turned their occupants adrift in the street. For- 
tunately they stopped short at the injury of inani- 
mate things, and not a single person in Antwerp was 
wounded or robbed during the three days and nights 
the outbreak lasted. As one historian wrote, the 
rioters warred with graven images, but not with 
the living. 

The same thing happened in all cases — for the 
image-breaking in Antwerp was followed by similar 
disturbances in many parts of the Netherlands. 
Some provinces — the more strongly Catholic ones — 
were free of outbreaks, but in other cases as 
many as four hundred churches were sacked in a 
single province. The worst riots of all, except that 
in Antwerp, took place in the towns of Tournay, 
Mechlin and Valenciennes. 

65 



JVilliam the Silent 

It was not the Beggars who were responsible for 
the image-breaking. Wild as they were, they never 
stooped to such work as this. In each town it was 
accomplished by the scum of the citizens, rough, 
passionate people of bad character, who borrowed 
the Beggars' cry for their own discreditable purposes. 
The Beggars themselves and the main body of Pro- 
testants all over the country were equally out of 
sympathy with the image-breakers, who did the 
Reformed cause more harm than good. 

The immediate result of the riots was that the 
Duchess Margaret at last became convinced that 
something must be done to pacify the country. A 
few days later she very unwillingly signed an agree- 
ment with Louis of Nassau and the Beggars, in which 
she declared the Inquisition at an end and granted 
liberty of worship in all places where Protestant 
preaching had already taken place. The nobles, 
on their side, promised to support the Regent so long 
as these pledges were kept. 

This Accord, as it was named, caused the greatest 
joy all through the Netherlands. At last, people 
felt, the Inquisition was at an end. 



66 



So he died for his faith? That was fine, 
More than most of us do. 

Robert Browning 

CHAPTER IX: Open 

Rebellion 

WHEN Philip heard of the image-breaking 
in the Netherlands, his rage knew no 
bounds, but his resolution never weak- 
ened for a moment. 

There was one thing that the riots made clear to 
him at last, namely, that the Protestants had grown 
too strong for Margaret's government, and that, if 
the country were not to be lost to Spain, a more 
powerful force than any as yet in the Netherlands 
must be sent to support the Edicts. 

Philip laid his plans at once, but time was needed 
to carry them out, so he raised no objection when 
his sister wrote privately to tell him that she had been 
forced to sign the Accord. It suited his plans just 
then that the country should be kept quiet and con- 
tented until the army he was collecting could reach 
the Low Countries. 

Meanwhile the Flemish people, never suspecting 
that once more their King meant to break faith with 
them, were rejoicing that at last, as they thought, 
the reign of the Inquisition was over. Only Orange 
and his friends, who knew better than to trust 
Philip II, were quietly preparing for the struggle 
which they saw must come. 

At this time no one, not even the Prince himself, 
knew the courage and strength that the little, water- 
logged land possessed; no one dreamt that the 
Netherlanders, unaided, could stand successfully 

67 



William the Silent 

against the most powerful country in Europe. The 
leaders of the Reformed party accordingly sought 
help outside Flanders, and Count Louis of Nassau 
went on many journeys for his brother to the Pro- 
testant courts of Europe. 

But for one reason or another, the Lutheran Princes 
of Germany, the French Huguenots and Queen 
Elizabeth of England were all unable to aid Flanders 
in her struggle. 

By this time matters had gone so far that there 
was no more pretence at friendliness between William 
and the Government. He and the Duchess were 
now open enemies, and a close watch was kept on 
all his doings, which were reported by Margaret to 
the King. In self-defence, the Prince placed spies 
of his own at the Spanish court, and soon these 
secret informers were so increased by both parties 
that every private plan made by one was quickly 
known to the other. 

This spying seems to us of to-day a hateful and 
unworthy thing, and at first one wonders how so 
honourable a man as the Prince of Orange could 
stoop to it. But it must be remembered that 
William lived, not in the twentieth, but in the six- 
teenth century, when spying was the custom of the 
age and was one of the ordinary precautions em- 
ployed by all monarchs and statesmen. 

The Prince plainly saw that without an organized 
party he could do nothing, and his first care was to 
gain promises of support from his friends. The 
Beggars, with Brederode and Count Louis at their 
head, were with him to a man, but, to his intense 
disappointment, Egmont, the man on whom he placed 

68 



Open Rebellion 



the most reliance, was too loyal or too weak to con- 
sent to rebel against the King. 

In spite of the fact, which Egmont well knew, 
that Philip had determined on his death, as well as 
those of Horn and Orange, the Count was simple 
enough to believe that by trusting the King all would 
yet be well. 

Horn was despairing and angry, very indignant 
at the cruelties of the Government, and with many 
private grievances against the royal family of Spain. 
He had spent his whole fortune in the service of 
Philip, had done his best to prevent civil war during 
the recent risings, and in return his character had 
been continually blackened by the Regent. Now he 
was determined to retire from court life, which he 
disliked, and from the service of the master who had 
treated him so ungratefully. 

Meanwhile the Government had recovered from the 
shock of the image-breaking, and was taking vigorous 
measures with the towns where the worst rioting had 
occurred. These were, apart from Antwerp, where 
the trouble began, Tournay, Mechlin and Valen- 
ciennes, all three of which were in the southern part 
of the Netherlands, which is now either Northern 
France or Belgium. Though circumstances after- 
ward changed, it was here that the Reformation 
was fiercest and strongest in its early years. 

Tournay and Mechlin were soon subdued by the 
armed forces which the Duchess sent against them, 
but Valenciennes had been a sanctuary town for 
criminals since Roman days, and consequently 
possessed a bolder and more rebellious spirit. A 
further cause for the resistance it made was the 

69 



William the Silent 

presence of Guido de Bray and Peregrine de la 
Grange, two daring Calvinist preachers who had 
turned Valenciennes into a very hotbed of heresy 
and discontent. 

A few weeks before the Christmas of 1566, a 
Spanish general named Noircarmes appeared before 
the walls with a body of troops and demanded ad- 
mission to the city. Valenciennes had very strong 
fortifications, and was considered almost impossible 
to capture, so the Huguenot, de la Grange, sent back 
a defiant answer. 

" May I grow as mute as a fish and may my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth," he said, "before 
I persuade my people to accept a garrison of cruel 
soldiers, who will trample upon their liberties and 
their beliefs/ 5 

Thereupon Noircarmes besieged the town, and cut 
to pieces a rabble army which a certain Peter Cor- 
naille, who had been by turns, locksmith, preacher 
and general, led to its relief. Brederode was busy 
with wild schemes and wilder attempts to defeat 
Noircarmes, but only succeeded in injuring the 
Prince of Orange's cause by his recklessness. 

In addition to this, Brederode was the leading 
spirit in the tumult which followed at Antwerp, 
where fifteen thousand men rose in revolt. William's 
coolness and wise leadership then showed in strong 
contrast withBrederode's well-meant, violent efforts. 
Almost single-handed, and at great risk to his life, 
the Prince met the rebels and finally succeeded in 
subduing the city. 

The disturbance lasted for several days, but 
fortunately no blood was shed, and in the end the 

70 




"THE PRINCE MET THE REBELS"— Page 6S 



Open Rebellion 



rebels joined with Orange in shouting "Long live 
the King!" It was the last time in his life that 
William ever raised that cry. 

If this and other outbreaks had been successful, 
an army might have been able to go to Valenciennes 
in time to save it. The citizens fought and endured 
bravely during the siege, but after three months 
they were forced to surrender. Noircarmes under- 
took that the inhabitants' lives should be spared and 
that the town should not be sacked, but, like most 
of this Spaniard's promises, this was a "piecrust" 
one — made only to be broken. As soon as the 
victors entered the walls many important citizens 
were arrested, and the soldiers were let loose to rob 
and murder at their pleasure. 

De la Grange and de Bray, the two Protestant 
ministers, fled for their lives by the water gate, in the 
company of young Herlin, the son of one of the im- 
prisoned burghers. 

It was late in the day when they left the conquered 
town, and after going a few miles they halted, weary 
and footsore, at a country inn and called for supper. 
Unfortunately a peasant at the tavern recognized 
them, and carried the news of their whereabouts to 
the Spanish troops. The fugitives were arrested 
and taken before Noircarmes. Herlin and his father 
suffered instant execution, while the two preachers 
were condemned to death, and meanwhile were put 
in a horrible dungeon and heavily loaded with 
chains. 

They were visited in prison by a Roman Catholic 
lady, who wished to see in what manner heretics 
would bear suffering for conscience' sake; she asked 

7i 



William the Silent 

them how they could eat, drink or sleep while they 
were enduring such discomforts. 

" Madam/' answered de Bray calmly, "the cause 
and my good conscience uphold me. I count these 
iron fetters more honourable than any of the gold 
chains and rings which adorn my oppressors." 

A little later these brave men went to their death 
in the same confident and joyful spirit. To the last 
they encouraged their followers to remain true to 
their faith, and declared that their only offence 
against the King was that they had preached the 
Gospel to Christians in a Christian land. 



72 



Take thy banner! and beneath 
The battle cloud's encircling wreath, 
Guard it till our homes are free! 
Guard Jt! God will prosper thee! 

Henry W. Longfellow 



CHAPTER X: Coming and 
Going 

WHILE the little patriot band of Nether- 
landers were making their first stand for 
religion's sake, and while their efforts at 
Valenciennes were ending in utter defeat, Philip II, 
far away in Spain, was anything but idle. He had 
gathered an army of his finest soldiers — and in those 
days Spanish troops were the best in the world — 
and ordered them to the rebellious provinces to crush 
all discontent. 

Philip had declared again and again that he would 
come himself to the Netherlands, but he never 
intended to do so. Instead, he placed at the head 
of this avenging army a man who was the foremost 
general of his day; his name was Ferdinand de 
Toledo, Duke of Alva, and he had won fame on nearly 
every battle-field of the past thirty years. 

Alva was a splendid soldier, but a merciless man, 
as bigoted a Catholic as the King himself, proud, 
ferocious and treacherous. Among his few virtues 
were bravery, sincerity and determination. He 
really believed that the rooting out of Protestantism 
was a noble work that would bring blessings on the 
man who undertook it. It seems an amazing thing 
to us, but we must remember that the Pope taught 
this doctrine, and thousands of Roman Catholics 
accepted it without question. 

73 



W^illiam the Silent 

In appearance the new commander was a striking 
figure, for he was tall and thin, with a long, narrow 
face that always wore a stern expression, black eyes 
and hair, and a beard of the same hue. 

Before Alva quitted Spain with his troops, Philip 
gave him strict orders that the discontent in the 
Netherlands was to be stamped out, whatever it 
might cost in lives and money. Furthermore, the 
Duke was first of all to " seize the Prince, bring 
him to execution within twenty-four hours/' and 
then to punish with death all prominent men who 
had taken any part in the recent disturbances. Of 
these the Counts of Egmont and Horn were 
specially mentioned. 

The Duchess had expected her brother to come in 
person, as he had so often promised, and she was 
deeply dismayed when, in the spring of 1567, she 
learnt that Alva and his army were on their way to 
the Low Countries. In vain she protested that the 
Duke's name was hated through the length and 
breadth of the country; Philip did not pay the 
slightest heed to her words, and every day brought 
Alva one march nearer his journey's end. 

In the month of August he entered Belgium, with 
a proud word and a boast on his lips. 

"I have tamed men of iron," he said, remembering 
his many past victories, "shall I not tame these men 
of butter?" The time came when he did not hold 
his new foes in such light esteem. 

The meeting between Alva and the Regent was not 
very friendly, for though Margaret had constantly 
complained to her brother of the hardness of her lot, 
and had more than once begged him to let her 

74 



Coming and Going 

give up the Regency, she was very indignant that 
Alva should have been appointed to succeed her in 
command after she had come through all the recent 
troubles and the country was tranquil again. 

She did not understand that the image-breaking 
and the rebellions which followed them were not the 
whole of the disturbance, but only the prelude to a 
mighty struggle. On the other hand, she knew the 
state of feeling in the Netherlands far better than 
Alva did, and would have bowed to it. She felt — 
and rightly, as events proved — that the new gen- 
eral's policy of stern suppression would end dis- 
astrously. 

The Duke's first care, after his arrival, was to carry 
out the King's commands as to the noblemen whom 
Philip had so violently condemned. 

It was an easy matter to arrest the two Counts. 
Egmont had known for months of the King's in- 
tentions toward him, but again and again he refused 
to believe the danger in which he stood. He had 
been one of those who had met the Duke on his 
arrival, and Alva had treated him in so friendly a 
fashion that the Count foolishly allowed his fears to 
be lulled to rest. His friends — and even Alva's own 
son, Don Frederic — warned him to flee in time, but 
he only laughed them to scorn and persuaded Horn 
to do the same. 

The end came quickly for these two brave and 
honourable, but unwise, nobles. Alva had not been 
in the Netherlands three weeks before he contrived 
to arrest them both at his own house, where he had 
invited them and others to dine. This was black 
treachery toward his guests, but the Duke was a man 

75 



William the Silent 

who believed that all things were right if done in the 
service of his master. 

Unfortunately for him, he was not so successful 
in another part of his mission, for he had arrived in 
the Low Countries only to find that the chief offender, 
William the Silent, was beyond his reach. 

Wiser than his two friends, the Prince had left 
Breda for the home of his childhood at Dillenburg 
when he heard of Alva's approach. He did not go in 
any cowardly spirit, though there were enemies who 
accused him of deserting the cause in time of need, 
but because Philip had devised a new oath of allegi- 
ance which he required all the nobles to take. 

This was a solemn promise to obey every order 
received from the King, whatever it might be, and 
William had steadfastly refused to comply, for, as 
he wrote to the Regent: 

"The form of this new oath is somewhat strange 
and seems to imply that I either meditate excusing 
myself from loyal exertions in the King's service, or 
that I am to receive orders that I could not con- 
scientiously execute, as I have also sworn to protect 
the privileges of the provinces. . . . 

"Therefore I pray your Highness, send some gen- 
tlemen to me with proper papers of dismissal, to 
whom I may deliver my commission, assuring you 
at the same time that I will never fail in my service 
to his Majesty for the good of this land." 

All reasonable commands the Prince was ready to 
obey, but even to please the King he would not act 
against his conscience. 

Shortly afterward his preparations for departure 
were complete. His eldest daughter, Marie, was a 

76 



Coming and Going 

maid of honour to the Regent at Brussels, but her 
father withdrew her from the court to go with him. 
His son and heir, Philip William, was at the univer- 
sity of Louvain — in those days boys went to college 
almost as soon as they reached their teens — but after 
a visit home he was sent back there to finish his 
studies. It is difficult to see how the Prince thought 
it safe to allow this; it was a mistake for which he 
suffered very heavily in time to come. 

Followed by many Netherlanders who were fleeing 
in terror at Alva's approach, the Prince, with his 
wife and family, started for quiet Dillenburg, where 
they arrived before Alva set foot in the Netherlands. 

So it came about that the proud and conquering 
Duke was baulked of the chief of his victims. With 
Orange, the ringleader, still at liberty, Alva knew 
that the capture of Egmont and Horn lost half its 
importance. 



77 



He that only rules by terror 
Doth grievous wrong. 

Alfred Tennyson 



CHAPTER XI: Preparing for 
the Struggle 

GREY old Dillenburg Castle, on its green hill- 
top, did not belong to William, and he and 
his party took up their abode there as the 
guests of his brother John, who had inherited the 
family home on the death of Count William the 
Elder. It says much for the love and honour in which 
the eldest brother was held, and for the generous 
hospitality of those times, that the Prince and his 
large party made their headquarters at Dillenburg 
for the next four years, always welcome, always 
treated to the best the house afforded. 

Good Count John never complained, though he 
had ample cause, for the castle, roomy as it was, was 
already crowded. John and his wife had several 
children, and Countess Juliana, with two or three 
of her daughters, still made Dillenburg her home; 
so did the younger brothers, Adolphus and Henry. 

This large family would have lived under one 
roof happily enough, for the Nassaus, and William 
in particular, were noted for their deep and sympa- 
thetic affection for all their kin, if it had not been 
for the presence of the Prince's wife. 

Poor misguided Anne, self-willed, violent- tempered, 
and married young into a foreign land and a strange 
religion, had not long remained "as happy as a 
queen. " As time went on, in spite of her good 
husband and her children, she grew more and more 
discontented and passionate. 

Before the Prince left the Netherlands she was 
incessantly grumbling because he allowed himself 

79 



William the Silent 

to be bullied, as she said, by the Regent, but no sooner 
had William rebelled and quitted the country than she 
began sighing for the comforts of Breda, and com- 
plaining of the crowded household at Dillenburg. 

Orange was a sad man in these days, for he had 
troubles enough to grieve his brave spirit. His 
country was in sore straits in the hands of the merci- 
less Alva, he himself was in exile to avoid arrest and 
execution, his wife quarrelled with all he did, and 
ten months after his departure from the Netherlands 
Alva dealt him one of the cruellest blows he ever 
experienced. 

It will be remembered that William's eldest son, 
the Count of Buren,had been left behind at Louvain 
University to study. The Duke of Alva resolved 
to take the boy prisoner, as he thought that by 
threatening harm to the son he might be able to 
influence the father. 

Accordingly he sent a nobleman with a party of 
armed men to Louvain, where the messenger pre- 
sented a letter to Philip William from the Duke. It 
was an invitation to him in the King's name to go to 
Spain, where he would be educated for Philip's service. 
The letter also explained that the party then in 
Louvain had been sent by the Duke to escort the 
honoured young guest to Spain. 

The boy was only thirteen, and was dazzled by 
the enchanting tales which were told him of the life 
he would lead at Madrid. He thought no evil of 
the King or Alva, and fell into the trap quite eagerly. 
It is fair to say that the Duke did not injure him in 
any way, but sent him straight to Spain, where the 
King provided for him. 

80 



Preparing for the Struggle 

It was over twenty years before the Count returned 
to his native land, and when at last he came back his 
father was dead, his brother Maurice, whom he had 
left a tiny baby, was ruling the Netherlands, and he 
himself was so changed by his Spanish education and 
life that no one would have recognized him as a 
Nassau. 

A few weeks before seizing the young Count, Alva 
had summoned the Prince of Orange, with all his 
followers — Louis, Hoogstraaten, Brederode and the 
rest — to appear at Brussels within a certain time to 
answer for their share in the rebellions. Any who 
failed to present themselves were condemned to 
lose all their property and to be banished from the 
Netherlands for the rest of their lives. 

William did not go, knowing well what his fate 
would be if he once placed himself in Alva's hands, 
and in this way he lost his large Flemish estates and, 
with them, much of his wealth. 

Three months later he published a very long an- 
swer to the Duke's summons, in which he gave reasons 
for all his actions. What he had done, he said, was 
not done from personal ambition, but for the good of 
his country, which was being hopelessly crushed and 
injured by a tyrant government. He had been in 
favour of the Beggars' petitions, but had done his 
best to stop violence among them, at Antwerp and 
wherever else it had arisen. For the protection of 
the Netherlands he had wished the States-General 
to meet, as it had met often during the reign of 
Charles V. 

This document is known as the " Justification, " 
and it was practically a declaration of war. We 

81 



JVilliam the Silent 

shall see now what Alva had been doing and how he 
replied to this letter of defiance. 

The Duke had not wasted the year which had 
passed since his arrival in Brussels. One of his first 
deeds as Captain-General of the Netherlands was to 
set up the Council of Troubles, a body which soon 
gained the name of the Blood Council, owing to the 
number of lives it sacrificed. As it was composed 
entirely of Alva's followers, and was made the most 
powerful court of justice — or injustice — in the land, 
it will be seen what a terrible weapon it soon became. 

Under the rule of this fearful council, the darkness 
of misery and death fell over the Netherlands. The 
scaffold, the hangman's axe and the stake overtook 
many who had not even committed the crime of her- 
esy or treason. These victims were rich men, whose 
money went, after their death, to fill the empty 
treasury of the King of Spain. The most barbarous 
methods of slaughter were employed, and sometimes 
the lifeless bodies of men who died naturally during 
their imprisonment were beheaded or burned to 
satisfy the cruelty of the Inquisitors. 

In his great book, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 
Motley vividly paints the desolation of the land. 
He says: 

"The whole country became a charnel-house; the 
death-bell tolled hourly in every village; not a fam- 
ily but was called to mourn for its dearest relatives. 
. . . The spirit of the nation, within a few months 
after the arrival of Alva, seemed hopelessly broken. 
The blood of its best and bravest had already stained 
the scaffold; the men to whom it had been accus- 
tomed to look for guidance were dead, in prison, 

82 




o 



P 

O 
o 

fcl 

c 



< 






Preparing for the Struggle 

or in exile. . . . The scaffolds, the gallows, the 
funeral piles, which had been sufficient in ordinary 
times, furnished now an entirely inadequate ma- 
chinery for the incessant executions." 

Philip had actually gone so far as to condemn to 
death every soul in the Netherlands! Consequently 
no one was ever found innocent, and people were 
executed on all sorts of excuses. One lady lost her 
life because she had once hit an image of the Virgin 
with her slipper, and on other occasions batches of 
fifty or a hundred people would be condemned in 
one sentence. 

There were so many prisoners that, though the 
Blood Council allowed no trial that was worthy of 
the name, the members often found it difficult to 
get through their work quickly enough. Once it 
happened that a man's name appeared on the list 
of the day's trials after he had been executed. 

" What does it matter?" said Vargas, an inhuman 
brute, who was one of the councillors, "if he has 
died innocent, it will be all the better for him when 
he takes his trial in the other world." 

Two of the "best and bravest" who fell early vic- 
tims to the Blood Council were the Counts of Horn 
and Egmont. After being kept for nine months in 
prison, the two nobles were condemned to death at 
a mockery of a trial. Both met their end with calm 
courage in June, 1568, and it is said that the Spanish 
troops, and even the Duke of Alva himself, wept for 
the cruel death of two such brave men and gallant 
soldiers. 

The deed made Alva's name more detestable than 
ever to the Netherlands, and William of Orange, 

83 



VTilliam the Silent 

when the news came to him at Dillenburg, grieved 
sorely for the loss of his comrades; but their hard 
fate only strengthened his resolve never to rest 
until his country was free of the Spanish yoke. 

In the next chapter we shall see how he came to 
grips with Alva. 



84 



CHAPTER XII: The First 

Campaign 

THE Prince of Orange would have led an army 
against Alva long ere this, if it had not 
been for one great disadvantage which for 
many months he could not overcome. To engage 
troops takes a large sum of money, and since his 
estates had been confiscated William had very little. 
From being, a few years before, one of the richest 
men in the Netherlands, he now found that his 
income from his principality of Orange, and from 
one or two other sources, was not more than enough 
to support himself and his family. 

While the Duke of Alva was slaying hundreds of 
Netherland men and women every week, William 
and Louis, in Germany, were straining every nerve 
to gather an army fit to encounter the picked Span- 
ish troops. Louis visited one German prince after 
another, calling on them as Protestants and lovers of 
justice to help the poor, oppressed Flemish people; 
but one and all were afraid to oppose so mighty a 
general as Alva. 

At last a certain amount of money was borrowed, 
given to him, or otherwise scraped together, and the 
Prince was able to put his brother in command of 
a body of German troops. Orange had sold his 
plate and jewels to furnish funds for this army, 
and Count John had generously helped in the same 
way. A plan was now made from which the leaders 
hoped great results, all the more so because they 
knew it would be a work of the greatest difficulty to 
raise money for a second attempt should the first fail. 

85 



William the Silent 

The Prince's idea was that the Protestant forces 
should enter the Netherlands on three sides at once, 
so that Alva would not know which way to turn; 
then they would all unite to defeat him. Louis, 
with his German troops, was to go by way of Freis- 
land, in the extreme north-east; a second army which 
Hoogstraaten had collected would enter the country 
on the eastern side, and a body of French Huguenots 
and Flemish exiles had promised to help the cam- 
paign by swooping down from the west. The Prince 
himself was to hold a small force in reserve at Cleves, 
on the German side of the border, ready to make a 
fourth attack if things went well. 

The plan was carefully thought out, but, owing 
to Alva's splendid generalship it was not nearly 
so successful as William had hoped. The French 
expedition was cut to pieces by one of the Duke's 
officers, and Hoogstraaten's force, which had tried 
to seize the important border town of Roermonde, 
was driven back with very heavy losses by a second 
body of Spaniards. 

Meanwhile dashing Count Louis had succeeded 
better. At a place called Dam, in the far north, his 
youngest brother Adolphus met him with a small 
body of cavalry. Large numbers of peasants, armed 
with scythes and pitchforks, thronged to Louis' 
standard, untrained and unused to war though they 
were. 

Alva saw that quick action was needed, and lost 
no time in sending Count Aremberg to Friesland with 
an army of nearly two thousand five hundred men. 
At Arnhem he was met by Count Meghem with a 
smaller force, and farther north the two generals 

86 



The First Campaign 

were joined by a third body of soldiers under a com- 
mander called Braccamonte. He and Aremberg 
met Count Louis' rabble at Dam, where a skirmish 
took place, in which Louis was driven back to his 
entrenchments with a loss of twenty or thirty men. 

Meghem, whose troops had mutinied at Arnhem, 
and who had been delayed in consequence, took 
no part in the engagement at Dam, but toward the 
end of the month marched north ward to rejoin Count 
Aremberg, The Count came up with Louis and his 
army, who had taken possession of a strong position 
a few miles from Dam, near the monastery of Heil- 
iger-Lee or "the Holy Lion/ 5 

Louis and Adolphus had had warning that the 
enemy was near, so by the time the Spanish forces 
arrived the patriot army was prepared for them. 

The battle began at once, and, thanks to Louis' 
cleverness in choosing his position and the rashness 
of the Spanish leader, who attacked too soon, a victory 
was won for the patriots. Toward the end of the 
fight Aremberg and Adolphus, each at the head of 
a few devoted followers, met in hand-to-hand con- 
flict. The Spanish commander slew the young 
Count of Nassau, and perished gallantly himself a 
few minutes later. Poor Aremberg! He atoned in 
some degree by a hero's death for the foolhardiness 
which had lost the battle for his side. 

The victory was not so great a one as it seemed, 
for Louis was unable to follow it up. Groningen, 
the capital of Friesland, fell into Spanish hands, 
and Louis could not recapture it for lack of guns. 
What good he did was to cut to pieces an experienced 
Spanish army, thus proving both to his own side and 

87 



William the Silent 

to Alva that the latter 9 s troops were not invincible, 
as they had been thought to be. 

Unhappily this advantage was more than balanced 
by the loss of brave young Count Adolphus, only 
twenty-eight years old, for whom his mother, sisters 
and brothers mourned deeply, and by the unjust 
deaths of Egmont and Horn, which were Alva's 
revenge, as it were, for his defeat. 

The news of Louis' victory at Heiliger-Lee had 
aroused all the Duke of Alva's fury, and even num- 
berless executions could not soothe him. Feeling 
that after this none of his generals could be relied 
upon, he marched northward himself with a mag- 
nificent army of fifteen thousand men. 

Louis was at Jemmingen, near Groningen, with 
only two-thirds as many soldiers, all badly-equipped 
and rebellious. In the battle that followed the 
daring Count never had a chance of victory; he 
was as unfavourably placed as Aremberg had been 
at Heiliger-Lee. He fought with desperate bravery, 
but Alva and his well-trained followers wiped out the 
rabble army with very little difficulty, and when all 
was over Louis only just managed to save himself 
by swimming across the River Ems. 

The deliberate cruelty of the Duke at this battle 
makes one shudder. He was resolved to teach the 
Netherlands a lesson that would have a lasting effect, 
and save him further trouble with these "men of 
butter.'' No mercy was shown to the defeated army, 
and for hours after the fighting was over the Spanish 
troops were busy killing every straggler or wounded 
man they could find. 

Louis lost seven thousand men, while Alva wrote 

88 



The First Campaign 

to the King afterward that only seven of his own 
men had fallen. Probably this is a false calcula- 
tion, but all historians agree that the Spanish death- 
roll could not have numbered more than eighty. 

Alva marched triumphantly homeward, allowing 
his troops to kill and burn at every step of the way, 
so that the whole sky was red with the fires they had 
kindled. At the same time Count Louis and the few 
men who had escaped with him were making their 
weary way back through the fruitful German coun- 
try to the man who had planned the expedition. 

Though William was bitterly disappointed at the 
almost complete failure of his first attempt to free 
the Netherlands, neither his courage nor Louis' 
faltered for a moment. 

"We must have patience and not lose heart," 
wrote the Prince, in an affectionate and encouraging 
letter to his defeated brother. "We must submit 
to the will of God and strive incessantly, as I have 
resolved to do, come what may. With God's help, 
I am determined to push onward. . . . " 

Louis 5 letter to a friend in England showed the 
same hopeful spirit: 

" Our army is partly dispersed and partly defeated, 
but our heart is as good as ever," were his words. 
" We hope soon, by the help of God, to have a better 
force than before to save the Church and the cause." 

These were brave words from leaders who had just 
been crushingly defeated with the loss of all their 
men, and who saw those who had been inclined to 
help them turning their backs on so unequal a 
struggle. But then all the Nassaus were made of 
heroic stuff. 

89 



0, have you been in Brabant, 

fighting for the states? 
0, have you brought back anything 

except your broken pates? 
0, / have been in Brabant, myself 

and all my mates. 

We'll go no more to Brabant, un- 
less our brains were addle, 

We're coming home on foot, we 
went there in the saddle; 

For there's neither gold nor glory 
got, in fighting for the states. 

German Soldiers' Ballad 



CHAPTER XIII: Utter 
Defeat 

BAFFLED and disappointed, but unbroken 
in spirit, William the Silent had no sooner 
recovered from the first shock of his broth- 
er's death and the defeat at Jemmingen than he set 
to work to gather a fresh army. 

The Huguenots had been disheartened by the fail- 
ure of their expedition, and the German princes re- 
fused to help, so Orange turned to the only other 
Protestant ruler, Queen Elizabeth of England, and 
besought her aid. He was not undertaking a re- 
bellion, he said; all he wished to do was to defend the 
Reformed faith, "that the pure word of God might 
not be destroyed by the incredible cruelties of Alva." 
The King, still in Spain, had been misled by false 
advisers, and did not understand the terrible state 
of his Flemish provinces. 

In reality Philip knew quite well how matters 
stood in the Netherlands, and the Prince was aware 
that he knew; but Orange and his followers were by 
no means strong enough yet to stand alone, and this 
plea that the King was kept in ignorance by his 
officers in the Low Countries was for many years a 
convenient shield for the Reformers' actions against 
the Spanish Government. 

Queen Elizabeth had many difficulties of her own, 
and though much later in the struggle she gave 
generous help to the patriots, at this time she was 
unable to lend them aid. By dint of the greatest 
trouble and hard work, William succeeded in enroll- 
ing a second and larger army within a few weeks 

9i 



TJ^illiam the Silent 

after losing the first. When he entered the Nether- 
lands he found Alva waiting for him with a body of 
troops, rather weaker in numbers, but well-trained 
and loyal, while his own men, chiefly German hired 
soldiers — mercenaries, as they were called — were dis- 
contented and very difficult to control. 

Alva saw that if he could delay battle long enough 
these mutinous troops would desert the Prince and 
save him (Alva) the trouble of winning a victory. 
With the greatest skill he led William's army a long 
chase through Brabant, never coming to close quar- 
ters with the rebels, but cutting up small bodies of 
them whenever an opportunity occurred. 

The result was exactly what he had expected. 
William was so short of money that before long he 
had not enough left to buy his troops food and 
equipments. The men were half-starved and being 
led about the country in pursuit of an enemy whom 
they never saw. Soon mutinies broke out all through 
the army, and the soldiers declared that they would 
go no farther without food, clothes and the pay that 
was owing to them. 

By the end of that black year, 1568, William had 
been forced to disband his troops and take refuge 
in France. He had sold the last of his jewellery and 
plate to pay the soldiery, and never before had his 
prospects looked so dark. There was little Christ- 
mas joy among the Nassaus that year, and afterward 
William looked back to that Yuletide as the darkest 
time of his life. 

" We may regard the Prince now as a dead man," 
Alva wrote boastfully to the King; "he has neither 
influence nor credit." 

92 



Utter Defeat 



But Orange, though quiet for the moment, was 
even then planning fresh schemes for his country's 
deliverance. Even in this gloomy hour he never lost 
courage or doubted where his life-work lay. 

For a while, however, he could do nothing, for not 
only had Alva's good generalship worsted him, but 
he had sore family troubles to occupy his attention. 
His wife had always hated her life at Dillenburg, 
although her relations showed her every kindness 
and bore patiently with her outrageous temper. 

At last what little patience Anne possessed gave 
way completely, and she insisted on leaving Dillen- 
burg and going to live by herself in Cologne, where 
she set up a large, expensive household. William 
wrote many kind letters begging her to come back, 
but she refused. 

The last years of the poor Princess's life were very 
sad ones, for finally she went mad, and during the 
last two years of her life had to be kept closely im- 
prisoned. She never recovered her mind, and at last 
died miserably, leaving three children, Anna, Maurice 
and Emilie, who were brought up at Dillenburg by 
their uncle, John. 

Maurice grew up to be a fine soldier and a famous 
man, carrying on William's work after his father's 
death. 

The four years which followed his second cam- 
paign were very dreary ones to the Prince. For the 
most part of this time he and Louis, with their young- 
est brother Henry, were in France, where they had 
thrown in their lot with the Huguenots. 

They were always in straits for money. The 
Prince who, ten years ago, had been one of the 

93 



William the Silent 

richest men through the length and breadth of the 
Netherlands, and who had lavished money on all 
sides as though he owned the never-empty purse 
of Fortunatus, was now reduced to the greatest 
poverty. 

Once he had thrown a handsome gift into the bowl 
of every beggar in the streets who craved his charity; 
now he was so deeply in debt to his brothers and 
friends that he could hardly hope ever to pay them 
all back. The magnificently dressed young noble of 
a few years ago had become a shabbily clad soldier 
who must needs inquire anxiously what had hap- 
pened to the trunk-hose which he had sent to be 
mended. His vast revenues, his plate, jewellery and 
fine raiment, all had been swallowed up in the service 
of his country. 

Spies swarmed wherever the Prince might be, and 
letters were so often intercepted by these enemies 
that William and his brothers had to adopt a kind 
of secret code when writing on State matters. 

At one time Orange called himself George Certain, 
and addressed Louis as Lambert Certain. A casual 
reader might have thought their letters the ordinary 
business correspondence of two merchants, but the 
few who were in the secret could read important 
plans behind the mercantile wording. 

When the Prince wrote to an agent of his called 
Wesembeck, he disguised his meaning by using the 
names of metals to represent the provinces, and 
those of the old Greek gods for the different towns. 
If he mentioned Pollux, Wesembeck knew he meant 
Brill, while Triton stood for Rotterdam, and so on. 

All the while that his terrible lack of money kept 

94 



Utter Defeat 



the Prince inactive, news from the Netherlands grew 
more and more heartrending. 

After seeing the utter failure of William's second 
campaign, the Duke of Alva had returned home to 
Brussels in high feather, exceedingly well pleased 
with himself and his soldiers. Indeed, he was so 
proud of his success that he actually determined to 
erect a monument to himself! The bronze of the 
cannon which he had captured at Jemmingen was 
melted down and remodelled into a hugh statue of 
Alva, which was placed with great pomp in the cita- 
del at Antwerp. The boastful inscription upon it ran : 

To 

Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo 

DUKE OF ALVA 

Governor of the Netherlands under Philip II, for 

having extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, 

restored religion, secured justice, established peace; 

to the King's most faithful minister 

THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED 

Persecution went on unceasingly, and new instruc- 
tions, ever more severe, were issued to the governors 
and magistrates. A man might not even die in peace, 
for an officer of the Inquisition must be present to 
see that he received the Roman Catholic sacrament 
before he passed away. If any poor Protestant con- 
trived to die in his own faith his estates were for- 
feited to the crown, and his dead body was executed. 

King Philip II was always in money difficulties, 
and about this time his viceroy in the Netherlands 
found that funds were not coming into his coffers 
nearly as fast as they were spent, and that he must 

95 



Tf^illiam the Silent 

find some additional means of raising money. To 
do this lie instituted the taxes known as the hun- 
dredth, twentieth and tenth pennies. 

The hundredth penny, or the one per cent, tax, 
as it was sometimes called, meant that all men who 
possessed any property, such as houses or land, must 
pay one hundredth part of its value to the State. 
This tax had only to be paid once, and the Duke 
commanded that it should be collected without 
delay. 

The tax of the twentieth penny meant that every 
time any land was sold, five per cent., or a twentieth 
part of its value, was claimed by the Government. 

The last tax, that of the tenth penny, was so 
monstrous that no man knowing anything of money 
affairs could have thought it possible to collect it. 
It was nothing less than a duty of ten per cent, on 
every article bought or sold. 

The Netherlanders might have submitted to the 
first two taxes, though they were bound to cripple 
trade sorely, but the tenth penny was too great an 
injustice to be borne, and would have completed the 
ruin of the oppressed provinces. It meant that if a 
man bought a loaf of bread, costing, let us say, five- 
pence, he must pay a halfpenny to the Duke of Alva. 

When we think how many loaves a family would 
eat in a week, and remember that meat, wine, cloth- 
ing, furniture — in fact, everything — were to be taxed 
in the same proportion, it is easy to see that the 
traders would soon lose all their profit and the whole 
country be reduced to beggary. 



96 



The olde sea wall (he cried) is downe, 
The rising tide comes on apace, 

And boats adrift in yonder towne 
Go sailing uppe the market-place. 

Jean Ingelow 



CHAPTER XIV: The Darkest 
Hour 

THE storm of fear and protest which swept 
all through the Netherlands when the new 
taxes were announced would have made 
any man quail who had less confidence in himself 
than the Duke of Alva. These abominable taxes 
roused every one; falling as they did on all alike, 
they were as unjust to the Roman Catholics as to 
the Protestants. 

More than that, they were contrary to all Nether- 
land laws, for the Joyous Entry of Brabant and the 
charters of the other provinces expressly said that 
money could only be raised by the Government with 
the consent of all the estates. 

Petitions and protests from all quarters poured in 
upon the Duke. The hundredth penny was agreed 
to, but the other two taxes infuriated the Nether- 
landers. Alva, however, was a man of iron deter- 
mination, and by degrees he forced the provinces to 
yield, the more easily as they hardly believed that 
he would actually dare to collect the taxes. At 
last only Utrecht, both province and city, held out. 
They offered a large sum of money, but refused to 
submit to these perpetual taxes. 

The Duke made them pay dearly for their obsti- 
nacy. He sent troops to take possession of Utrecht, 
declared both province and city guilty of high trea- 

97 



TTilliam the Silent 

son, and deprived them of all their privileges. Then, 
and not till then, Alva felt sure of his tenth and 
twentieth pennies, and in the summer of 1569 he 
wrote cheerfully to the King that the battle of the 
taxes was won. 

He was wrong, for when he tried to collect the duties 
the provinces put every possible hindrance in his way. 
The utmost he could do was to make an agreement 
with the estates that they should pay a large fixed 
sum annually for the next two years. At the end of 
that time the taxes would be discussed again. 

This arrangement was a sad blow to the Duke. 
The King had never been greatly pleased with the 
scheme, fearing its effect on the trade of the Nether- 
lands, and when it failed Alva knew that he had 
fallen in the royal favour. 

He was growing old, his health was bad, and he was 
anxious to resign his position. Even he felt uncom- 
fortable under the weight of hatred he had created 
against himself. Never had the Low Countries 
detested any man so much; the mere mention of his 
name was enough to throw a Netherlander into fury. 

All these circumstances showed Philip that it was 
time Alva's successor was appointed. While con- 
sidering who was best fitted to fill the post, the King 
brutally murdered Baron Montigny, whom Orange 
had sent to Spain as an envoy years before, and who 
had been imprisoned there ever since at his Spanish 
Majesty's pleasure. The Baron was a brother of 
the unfortunate Count Egmont. 

The unhappy Netherlanders had not yet come to 
the end of their troubles. They had reached that 
darkest hour of all which comes before the dawn, 

98 



The Darkest Hour 

and both man and nature seemed united against 
them. Not long before Christmas, in the year 1570, 
a terrific gale drove the sea landward and caused the 
dykes along the coast of Holland to break in every 
direction. 

Eastward rushed the foaming waters, flooding mile 
after mile of country, till towns far inland had 
become seaports, and the gale drove fishing vessels 
deep over ruined gardens and meadows. 

The northern province of Friesland suffered most 
of all, but throughout the Netherlands the loss of 
life and property almost baffled counting. One 
hundred thousand people perished, and many more 
were only saved with great difficulty. 

The Seigneur de Billy, a noble who had previously 
been hated for his Spanish blood, earned undying 
gratitude in Friesland by his bravery in the work of 
rescue, for he and his troops went out in boats and 
saved many lives. 

While the Prince of Orange was watching the march 
of events with horror from his retreat in France, one 
of his followers in the Netherlands made a bold 
attempt against the Spaniards. On the isle of 
Bommel, which is not a true island, but a narrow 
strip of land between the mouths of the Meuse and 
Waal rivers, stood Lowenstein Castle. As it was 
in an important position, the Spaniards had left a 
garrison, though a small one, there. 

One wild December evening, four grey-robed and 
grey-cowled monks knocked at the castle gate and 
requested shelter for the night. They were taken to 
the commandant, Tisnacq, who was seated by a 
blazing fire talking to his wife. 

99 



JVilliam the Silent 

"Does your Excellency hold this castle for the 
Prince of Orange or for the Duke of Alva?" asked 
the foremost monk as he came towards the fire. 

"Down with your Prince of Orange! I recognize 
no liege save Philip, King of Spain/ 5 answered 
Tisnacq contemptuously. 

Without a word the monk, who was really a drover 
named Herman de Ruyter and a devoted follower 
of Orange, drew a pistol from under his robe and shot 
the commandant dead before the eyes of his horrified 
wife. At the same time the other three men produced 
weapons which had been concealed in the folds of 
their monkish dress, and, few though they were, 
overcame the small, panic-stricken garrison. 

The next morning they opened the gates to twenty- 
five comrades who had been awaiting the success 
of their stratagem from the outside, and did what 
they could to fortify the place. They expected to 
be joined almost at once by a larger band of men, 
but floods along the road delayed the arrival of this 
reinforcement. 

While the new garrison still consisted of fewer 
than thirty men, the Spaniards, always prompt in 
warfare, sent a large body of soldiers to recapture 
the castle. In the ordinary way this would have 
been a difficult task, for Lowenstein was strongly 
fortified, and was protected from attack on three 
sides by water. Owing, however, to the small 
numbers of the besieged, the Spaniards gained a 
quick victory. 

Within two days they were again masters of the 
place, and de Ruyter and his friends, after desperate 
fighting, all perished — some on the scaffold, some by 

ioo 



The Darkest Hour 

the hangman's rope, and de Ruyter in an explosion 
of a mine which he himself had laid, rather than fall 
into the enemy's hands. 

Though William the Silent had had no knowledge 
of de Ruyter's plans, and would not have approved 
of his treachery if he had, it was one more blow to 
the cause he held so dear, and the news, when it 
came, saddened him accordingly. 

Wherever the Prince went grim failure seemed to 
dog him. He and his two younger brothers had 
thrown in their lot with the French Huguenots, who 
at this time were going through almost as deep trials 
as their fellow-believers in the Netherlands. 

In 1569 Louis and Adolphus of Nassau took part 
in the disastrous battle of Jarnac, which resulted in 
utter defeat for the Protestants and in the death of 
their leader, the Prince of Cond£. Later followed 
the battle of Moncontour. William had gone peril- 
ously back to Germany by the time it was fought, 
but Louis bore himself so bravely that he was the 
hero of the day. 

A little later peace was made with the French King, 
who, to occupy his soldiers and indulge his jealousy 
of Philip, (promised to send an army to the relief 
of the Netherlands, and with high hopes William, 
from an obscure retreat in Germany, renewed his 
noble efforts for the salvation of his country. At 
last success seemed to be within his grasp. 



IOI 



Joining a corsair's crew, 
O'er the dark sea I flew 

With the marauders. 
Wild was the life we led; 
Many the souls that sped, 
Many the hearts that bled, 

By our stern orders. 

Henry W. Longfellow 



CHAPTER XV: The Beggars 
of the Sea 

THOUGH, during his years of exile, the Prince 
of Orange had found it impossible to help 
the Netherlands by land, he had not been 
quite so powerless on the sea. He was an inde- 
pendent sovereign in Orange, though only a noble in 
Flanders, and as a sovereign he claimed the right to 
establish a fleet of his own. 

He had no sooner come to blows with Alva than he 
began to issue what were called letters of marque 
to a number of Netherland vessels, authorizing them 
to cruise the high seas and attack any ships they might 
meet which belonged to the enemy. The Prince 
granted the letters in all good faith, but, sad to say, 
the powers he gave were shamefully misused, and 
soon the Beggars of the Sea, as the crews of these 
vessels called themselves, were as much feared along 
the coast as Alva himself was on land. 

Many of the ships were commanded by men who 
cared very little for the cause which William had 
so deeply at heart. What they and their desperate 
crews wanted was to make their fortunes, and num- 
bers of them were no better than common pirates. 
They attacked any ships which promised rich 
plunder, whether they flew the flag of Spain or not. 

By the beginning of 1570 their conduct had 
become so disgraceful that William was forced to 
interfere. He recalled the admiral, Dolhain, ap- 
pointed the Count de la Marck in his stead, and 
ordered that rules of good conduct which were 
almost forgotten at present should in future be 
strictly obeyed. 

103 



JVilliam the Silent 

It was all very well for the Prince to issue com- 
mands, but as he was not on board to see that they 
were carried out things went on very much as before. 
De la Marck, a desperate, ferocious man, who always 
wore the Beggars' costume, soon proved himself 
to be no better than Dolhain. He was the terror of 
the whole coast, for he had sworn not to cut his beard 
until Egmont's death was avenged, and no vessels 
or harbours were safe from his attacks. 

The power of the Beggars of the Sea was 
strengthened by Queen Elizabeth of England, who, 
though at times she turned against them with dan- 
gerous suddenness, as a rule was their good friend, 
and allowed them to seek harbourage, volunteers 
and supplies at the English ports. 

The year 1572 was destined to be one of change, 
excitement and unexpected events. The first of 
these events took place in the early spring, when a 
deed was done by the Beggars of the Sea which went 
some way towards wiping out the memory of their 
past offences. 

Queen Elizabeth was a cautious monarch, with a 
most difficult part to play in European politics. She 
was sometimes Philip's friend, sometimes his foe, 
according as she thought he could help or injure 
England. More than two years before she had 
quarrelled violently with Alva, and thereupon 
showed great kindness to his arch-enemies, the 
Beggars. But early in 1572 the Queen and Alva 
patched up their disagreement, and consequently 
Elizabeth felt that she could no longer encourage 
the rebel rovers. 

Orders went forth that no subject of hers might 

104 



The Beggars of the Sea 

supply de la Marck and his followers with food of 
any kind, so, to avoid starvation, the pirate fleet was 
forced to leave the shores of England. Twenty-four 
vessels strong, the Beggars of the Sea determined to 
relieve their hunger by a raid on the northern Dutch 
coasts. A storm prevented their reaching Enk- 
huizen, on the Zuider Zee, as they had intended, 
and on the first day of April they made a sudden 
appearance in the harbour at Brill, a seaport at the 
mouth of the River Meuse. 

Their approach threw the little town into a panic 
of fear. While the terrified inhabitants made their 
preparations for defence or escape, as each deemed 
best, a stout-hearted ferryman named Peter Koppel- 
stock rowed out to the fleet to investigate. Koppel- 
stock secretly favoured Orange's cause, so when he 
went back to Brill and the townsfolk crowded round 
him to ask if the Sea Beggars were strong in numbers, 
he answered that the ships carried about five thou- 
sand men, who demanded the keys of the town. 

It was quite true that the starving pirates wished 
to gain possession of Brill, which was a well-walled 
and protected town. What was not true was the 
ferryman's reply about the strength of the Beggars. 
If the burghers had known that their enemy was not 
more than three or four hundred strong they would 
have defended the town, but Peter Koppelstock's 
lying answer made them think that resistance would 
be useless. 

Accordingly they opened the gates with the best 
grace they could muster. The Beggars of the Sea 
came in, and they now stained their cause by plun- 
dering everything of value in the town and by 

105 



TJ^illiam the Silent 

killing all the priests and monks who fell into their 
hands. In spite of this cruelty, their entrance into 
Brill laid the foundation stone of the Dutch 
Republic, for, excepting Louis of Nassau's short- 
lived victory at Heiliger-Lee, it was the first success 
achieved by the patriots and the first check to 
Spanish tyranny. 

All over the country, as the news flew from village 
to village and province to province, the people were 
roused to fresh energy. New hope flowed warmly 
through their veins, that had been long frozen by 
despair, and nothing they could do was sufficient to 
express their delight. 

Alva, old, ill, and only waiting the arrival of his 
successor to retire from what he considered "so un- 
grateful a land, 5 ' did not at first understand the im- 
portance of the Beggars 5 capture. He did not realize 
how immensely useful a Netherland seaport would 
be to them. 

"It is nothing/ 5 he said wearily when the news 
was brought him, but very soon his indifference 
changed to rage. 

It did not improve his temper to know that all 
over the country people were repeating gleefully a 
rhyme which some quick-witted person had invented. 
Brill is the Flemish word for spectacles, besides being 
the name of the port, and the couplet ran something 
like this: — 

In 1572, on April Fool's Day, 

Duke Alva's spectacles were stolen away. 

However, the Spanish viceroy was too good a 
soldier to waste much time in ill-temper; he ordered 

106 



The Beggars of the Sea 

Count Bossu, who had been Stadtholder in Holland 
and Zeeland since the Prince of Orange resigned 
those offices, to recapture Brill without delay. 

Bossu 's force was much more numerous than that 
of the Beggars in the town, but the patriots flooded 
the surrounding country by opening the dykes, and 
then completely routed the alarmed invaders by 
slipping out to sea and setting fire to the Spanish 
ships. 

While the foe was sadly retreating by water, Ad- 
miral de la Marck called all the inhabitants of Brill 
together, and made them swear that henceforth they 
would be loyal to their rightful Stadtholder, the 
Prince of Orange. 

And now it seemed that fortune stood at last upon 
the side of William the Silent, for the whole country 
rose on a sudden to aid him in the glorious cause of 
freedom. _ 

Rotterdam, which had declared for the Prince 
immediately after the victory at Brill, fell into the 
hands of Bossu by a treacherous trick on his home- 
ward way, and was sacked with horrible cruelties; 
but in many other places the patriots were successful. 

Flushing, one of the most important ports on the 
whole Flemish coast, expelled the weak Spanish 
garrison in the place. As their numbers were small 
they sent to de la Marck for aid, and the Admiral 
willingly allowed his daring helper, Treslong, to lead 
a party of men to support them. They hanged 
Alva's famous engineer, an Italian named Pacheco, 
who happened to be in the town. 

The example set by Brill and Flushing was fol- 
lowed by many other places, and the Prince thanked 

107 



William the Silent 

God that at last his just and noble cause was mak- 
ing such progress. Town after town, in Holland, 
Zeeland, Guelderland, Overyssel, Utrecht and Fries- 
land, raised the standard of the house of Orange. 
In the name of the distant King, William re-estab- 
lished himself in his position of Stadtholder of Hol- 
land and Zeeland. 

Meanwhile Count Louis the bold had not been idle. 
From France he made a dash into Hainault, where 
he captured the important border fortress of Mons. 
His speech to the citizens shows us that the Nassau s 
had not taken up arms against their sovereign, 
King Philip, but only against Alva and tyranny. 
If the King would grant them liberty of conscience, 
they were quite willing to remain under the domin- 
ion of Spain. 

"For," said Louis to the townsfolk of Mons, "I 
protest that I am no rebel to the King; I prove it 
by asking no new oaths from any man. . . . You 
will ask why I am in Mons at the head of an armed 
force; are any of you ignorant of Alva's cruelties? 
The overthrow of this tyrant is as much in the in- 
terest of the King as of the people, therefore there 
is nothing in my present conduct inconsistent with 
fidelity to his Majesty. Against Alva alone have I 
taken up arms; 'tis to protect you against his fury 
that I am here." 

The time had not yet come when William could 
openly declare war against the King, who, he knew, 
was as much to blame as the Duke of Alva; for the 
moment, therefore, the servant must bear the sins 
of his master, as well as his own — in this case, truly 
a heavy load! 

108 



Have ye served us for a hundred years 
And yet ye know not why? 

We brook no doubt of our mastery, 
We rule until we die. 

Henry Newbolt 

CHAPTER XVI : The Year 

1572. 

AND now success came to William the Silent 
as rapidly as failure had previously done. 
Town after town threw off the Spanish yoke, 
and the Beggars of the Sea, leaving robbery and per- 
secution behind them, turned their strength to good 
purpose in the cause of national liberty. 

Their crowning success occurred in June, when the 
Duke of Medina Coeli arrived off the Flemish coast 
with a large fleet and two thousand soldiers under 
the command of Julian Romero. The Duke was 
bringing reinforcements for Alva, but, unfortunately 
for himself and his men, he fell in with the Water 
Beggars, who destroyed or routed half his force and 
captured much valuable treasure. 

Alva, who was at his wits' end for money, and who 
had been counting on the Spanish gold which the 
fleet was bringing, found himself for the moment 
almost powerless. The two years' grace which had 
postponed the struggle over the Tenth Penny had 
more than passed, but in his penniless and defeated 
condition the Duke had not strength enough to en- 
force the tax. To the people's joy he was obliged 
to abolish it, in return for a fixed yearly sum to be 
paid by the Estates. 

Meanwhile the Prince of Orange was not idle, 
though he had not actually taken part in any of the 
fighting. He summoned a meeting of the Estates 

109 



William the Silent 

at Dordrecht, at which the representatives declared 
themselves still loyal to the King, but accepted 
Orange as his lieutenant in the Netherlands instead 
of Alva. 

The Prince asked them for money, without which 
he could do nothing. He had collected an army 
of over twenty thousand men, mostly German 
mercenaries, but could not take the field unless he 
were able to guarantee his troops pay for three 
months. Before the congress met he had written 
eloquent letters to the chief cities, entreating them 
to remember the great cause to which he had 
dedicated his life. 

"Let not a sum of gold be so dear to you that for 
its sake you will sacrifice your lives, your wives, your 
children and all your decendants, to the latest 
generations," he wrote on one occasion, "that you 
will bring sin and shame upon yourselves, and de- 
struction upon us who have so heartily striven to 
assist you. Think . . . what a bloody yoke ye will 
impose for ever upon yourselves and your children 
... if you now prevent us from taking the field 
with the troops which we have enlisted." 

William's passionate letters, and the eloquence 
of his friend, Lord St Aldegonde, had such an effect 
upon those who read them that the representatives 
assembled at Dordrecht determined to give the 
Prince cordial help in the struggle. 

Here, so that you may understand the position 
of affairs better, I will interrupt my narrative to give 
a few particulars about the Netherland form of 
government 

The States-General consisted of the nobles sitting 

no 



The Year 1572 

together with deputies from all the important towns 
in the seventeen provinces. They could be sum- 
moned at the will of the sovereign. 

The meeting at Dordrecht in 1572 was, however, 
far from being an ordinary one. The congress had 
been summoned by the Prince of Orange, not by the 
King, and, as a very large portion of the country 
was still in the hands of Spain, the only deputies 
present in the little Dutch town were those who rep- 
resented the cities of a single province — Holland. 

Holland was the Prince's own corner of the coun- 
try, and had been and always was, the first in defying 
Spain. Brill, Rotterdam, Dordrecht itself, and most 
of the places where fighting had occurred, were in 
this one ocean- washed, water-logged little province 
of Holland. Of its six great cities Amsterdam alone 
was not represented at Dordrecht, for this city was 
still under Alva's control. On the other hand, 
several smaller towns, which usually had no depu- 
ties, had been invited to send them now. 

When the congress met, it gave William almost 
more than he had dared to hope. He was recognized 
as Stadtholder, though he had resigned this office 
some years previously, and arrangements were come 
to regarding the carrying on of the war which made 
William practically the sovereign of his own part 
of the country. 

It was further agreed that both Protestants and 
Roman Catholics should be allowed to worship in 
their own way — a great change from Alva's fierce 
intolerance. 

Nor was money lacking. The Estates agreed to 
provide the sum needed for the army, and promised 

in 



William the Silent 

more funds as they were required. The men who 
had indignantly refused to pay Alva's Tenth 
Penny opened their coffers wide for the Prince of 
Orange. 

With plenty of money and the confidence of Hol- 
land to support him, the Prince set forth again un- 
daunted. In June, while Count Louis was being 
closely besieged in Mons, the town he had so lately 
taken from them, William led his army into action. 
He first captured Roermonde, a city near the Ger- 
man border, where his troops — without his consent, 
of course — followed the brutal example of their foes, 
and put many monks and priests to death. The 
Prince was very angry, and issued a proclamation 
threatening with death any soldiers who were con- 
victed of such cruelties. 

After being delayed a month in Roermonde, be- 
cause the expected funds from the Estates were long 
in coming, the Prince crossed the river Meuse in 
August, and advanced by way of Mechlin, Louvain 
and Brussels. The people welcomed him wherever 
he went, except in Brussels, the Spanish head- 
quarters, and put themselves under his command. 

Admiral Coligny had promised to join Orange with 
an army of twelve thousand French Protestants, 
and if this meeting had taken place there is every 
probability that the united forces would have 
crushed Alva's troops and brought the war to a 
speedy end. 

Most unfortunately for the Prince, an act of the 
blackest treachery from outside in a few hours 
shattered his hopes more completely than ever be-' 
fore. This event was the horrible Massacre of Saint 

112 



The Year 1572 

Bartholomew in France, when, by order of King 
Charles IX, many thousands of Huguenots were 
murdered, and the Protestant party was practically 
wiped out. 

The happenings which led to the massacre were 
these. The French King had for a long time sat on 
a throne made insecure by the constant quarrels of 
the Catholics and the Huguenots. He was like a boy 
steadying a see-saw from the middle, and casting his 
weight on the weaker side to keep the rocking even. 
As the fortunes of each side changed, so did Charles's 
support, for he always threw the balance of his help 
on to the weaker side, so that he might avoid being 
overwhelmed by the stronger. 

In the summer of 1572 the Huguenots had, for the 
moment, the upper hand, and the weak young King, 
urged by his wicked mother, Catherine of Medici, 
resolved to rid himself of their dangerous supremacy 
in one bold stroke. A huge plot was arranged with 
the Catholics, and on August 24th, St Bartholomew's 
Day, when the clocks of Paris chimed the hour of 
midnight, Catholics rushed out from palace, house 
and hovel, and hounded the Protestants to death 
through the quiet streets of Paris. 

The massacre lasted two days, not only in the 
capital but in many other parts of France, and 
thousands of Huguenots fell in that ghastly hunt to 
the death. Scarcely a Protestant remained alive. 

Brave Admiral Coligny was one of the first victims, 
and while the Prince of Orange awaited him in 
Flanders his bloody corpse lay unburied in Paris. 
The whole of Protestant Europe stood aghast at the 
news, and while Queen Elizabeth decked herself 

"3 



W^illiam the Silent 

in mourning robes the Pope attended a thanksgiving 
service in Rome. 

To the Nassaus the disaster was overwhelming. 
Apart from the loss of warm personal friends among 
the murdered leaders, the non-appearance of the 
French army on which he had counted ruined the 
whole of William's plans. When the news reached 
Mons, Count Louis was so horrified and overcome 
with grief that he fell violently ill and did not recover 
for many weeks. 

The Prince was nearly heart-broken, as once 
again he saw his chance of success snatched away 
when all had promised so well. He wrote to Count 
John in the deepest despair. 

" There is no need to tell you what a fearful blow 
this has been to us. Our one hope of human aid was 
in France. By all earthly calculations we should 
have been to-day masters of Alva, and have had him 
at our mercy. It cannot be told how this has ruined 
and thrown me back, for I trusted to the twelve 
thousand arquebusiers that the Admiral promised 
me." 

William had only too good cause for despair. He 
bravely pressed on to Mons to relieve his brother, 
taking two or three towns on the way. Alva was 
there, in charge of the besieging army and in a 
dangerous position, for he had emptied even Brussels 
of its garrison to assist in the capture of Mons. 

If William had been as reckless a soldier as Louis, 
all might yet have been well, for in one bold move it 
would have been possible to raise the siege and, with 
the help of the imprisoned soldiers, crush the Spanish 
army. But William had no dash in his character, 

114 





'THE DOG AWAKENED THE PRINCE IN THE NICK OF TIME" 

—Page HZ 



The Year 1572 



and on this occasion his prudence and care stood him 
in bad stead. 

One calm September night he was in camp near 
Mons, with the enemy half a league away. Julian 
Romero, one of the boldest of Alva's officers, chose 
six hundred picked soldiers to make a night attack 
on the sleeping German camp. The men, who wore 
white shirts over their armour, that they might 
recognise one another in the dark, crept as softly as 
shadows through the summer night, and surprised 
the hostile army wrapped in deep slumber. 

Then followed a horrible butchery, when hundreds 
of men were killed in their sleep, or silenced before 
they were sufficiently awake to distinguish friend 
from foe. Finally the Spaniards fired the camp 
and many more unfortunates were burnt to death. 

William the Silent was in terrible danger, for 
Romero and some of his followers made straight for 
his tent. If it had not been for the devotion of a 
little spaniel that always slept at his feet, the noble- 
hearted Prince would have shared the fate of his 
soldiers. 

The dog was roused by the sound of footsteps, 
and by barking and licking his master's face, awak- 
ened the Prince in the nick of time. He had barely 
a minute to spring upon a horse that stood near, 
ready saddled, and gallop away, before Romero and 
his men reached the tent, and killed several secre- 
taries whom they found there. 

I do not know if the brave little dog was saved — 
I fear not; but he lives in the memory of the Prince's 
people, for on the tomb of Orange at Delft lies a 
little stone spaniel sleeping at his feet. 

"5 



The tumult of each sacked and 
burning village. 
The shout that every prayer 
for mercy drowns; 
The soldiers' revel in the midst 
of pillage; 
The wail of famine in be- 
leaguered towns. 

Henry W. Longfellow 



CHAPTER XVII : 'Mid Siege 
and Massacre 

AFTER the rout and disbandment of Wil- 
liam's army Louis' last hope of relief was 
gone, and there was nothing left but to 
surrender Mons on as honourable terms as possible. 
To his great surprise Alva, who, ferocious as he was, 
had been shocked by the wholesale French massacre, 
was sufficiently softened to treat his brave foe with 
very unusual leniency. 

He allowed Louis and his troops to pass out of 
Mons unharmed, and with strange Spanish courtesy 
— compared with his usual conduct — provided the 
Count with an escort to Roermonde. It was only 
after the troops had left that he sacked the town 
with his ordinary cruelty. Louis, who was still 
seriously ill, was taken in a litter by slow stages 
home to Dillenburg, where his mother's loving care 
presently restored him to health. 

Mons fell late in September, and about the same 
time William made up his mind to settle down either 
in Holland or Zeeland. Here he would be in the 
centre of the Protestant country, and far better 
able to direct matters than from distant Germany. 
Even as early as this he saw plainly that these two 
northern provinces were the backbone of the coun- 
try; in the south there was more Catholicism, more 
jealousy and less enthusiasm. 

Holland received the Prince with the warmest 
of welcomes, though he came as a defeated general, 
not, as they had hoped, as a conqueror. He had won 
the affectionate title of "Father of his Country," 

117 



William the Silent 

and in this chequered year the Wilhelmuslied, or 
Song of William, was written, probably by his close 
friend, Lord St Aldegonde. The first verse, trans- 
lated, runs: — 



Wilhelmus of Nassau, 

I am of German line, 
And faithful to the Fatherland 

Bide I, till death be mine. 
As sov'reign Prince of Orange 

I am undaunted, free; 
His Majesty of Spain, 

I've honoured loyally. 



There are many more verses which tell the story 
of the struggle for freedom, and to this day the 
Wilhelmuslied is the national song of Holland. 

By the end of the year the Prince had settled his 
family in a roomy house in Delft. This quiet little 
Dutch town was his home for the rest of his life, 
though he spent much of his time in camp or on the 
march. 

While William was transferring his household 
from Dillenburg to Delft, Alva had not been idle. 
From Mons he passed on to Mechlin, where the same 
horrible scenes took place. One of Philip's agents 
wrote to the King that the soldiers had not left "a 
nail in the walls," and Alva told Philip that God had 
ordained this chastisement, which, however, had not 
been sufficiently severe! 

By these dreadful means the Duke cowed the prov- 
inces of Brabant and Flanders into accepting once 
more the Spanish rule. But the stout heart of Hol- 
land was still untamed, and a patriot army laid 
siege to Tergoes, on the island of South Beveland. 

118 



'Mid Siege and Massacre 

It was an important place, because it was the key 
to the possession of other towns, and the Spaniards 
were resolved to raise the siege at all costs. 

South Beveland was situated at the mouth of the 
Scheld, and lay close to the mainland. In fact, 
until fifty years previously, when a great storm broke 
down the dykes and flooded the coast, it had not 
been an island at all. The tract of country which 
separated it from the rest of Flanders had lain under 
water ever since, and was known as the "Verdron- 
ken Land" or "Drowned Land." 

Patriot forces prevented the Spaniards from 
bringing help to Tergoes either by land or sea, so the 
desperate plan occurred to them of wading through 
the "Drowned Land " to the city. The passage was 
nowhere less than four feet deep, and it was nearly 
ten miles from the mainland to the island; yet, 
astonishing as it may seem, three thousand gallant 
soldiers actually performed the journey by night. 

The men were led by a bold Spanish officer named 
Mondragon. On a dark October night they started 
on their perilous journey through the water, each 
man carrying on his head provisions for the starving 
garrison inside Tergoes. 

The passage must be accomplished in six hours, 
or the rising tide would drown them; the slime under 
the water gave an uncertain foothold and in several 
places the channel was too deep to be crossed except 
by swimming. 

In the whole course of a war which teemed with 
heroic deeds and still more heroic sufferings, there is 
no more splendid and amazing feat than this night 
march of Mondragon's. In spite of the darkness, 

119 



William the Silent 

the distance, the cold waters reaching often to their 
necks, before day dawned the gallant band had 
reached the island; in the long ten miles of alternate 
wading and swimming only nine men out of the three 
thousand had lost their lives. 

After a short rest they marched on towards Tergoes , 
at the other end of the island, and when the news 
sped before them that a Spanish army had arisen, 
as it seemed, out of the sea itself, panic fell upon 
the patriot army. Such an unheard-of thing terrified 
the superstitious minds of the sixteenth century, and 
the besiegers fled hurriedly to their ships. Spanish 
daring had saved Tergoes for King Philip. 

While Mondragon was proving what deeds his 
troops could perform, the Duke of Alva and his 
son were making a triumphal progress northwards. 
Every city that they reduced was punished for its 
disobedience as Mons and Mechlin had been. In 
Zutphen scarcely a man was left alive, while Naarden, 
a small town on the Zuider Zee, was burnt to the 
ground and most of its inhabitants were horribly 
slaughtered. 

Alva, full of satisfaction, wrote to the King that 
"they had cut the throats of the burghers and all 
the garrison, and they had not left a mother's son 
alive"; while a Spanish historian shares his strange 
belief that he was serving God by these barbarities. 

"The sack of Naarden," wrote Mendoza in his 
history, "was a chastisement which must be believed 
to have taken place by express permission of a Divine 
Providence; a punishment for having been the first 
of the Holland towns in which heresy built its nest." 

The chief event of that winter (1572-73) was the 

I20 



*Mid Siege and Massacre 

long siege of Haarlem. William of Orange met the 
Estates there during the autumn, and afterwards 
remained in the neighbourhood, for he expected that 
Alva, who was most anxious to recover Holland, 
would try to regain possession of the important 
city of Haarlem. 

He was right. After a skirmish on the ice of 
Haarlem Lake near by, when a body of Spaniards 
on skates tried unsuccessfully to capture a fleet of 
Dutch vessels which was frozen up, Alva invested 
the city shortly before Christmas. 

The Haarlemers had hearts of oak in their breasts, 
but unfortunately the place was not well fortified 
against attack. Assault followed assault, and Don 
Frederic, Alva's son, who was in charge of the be- 
sieging army, found that Haarlem would not fall in 
a week, as he had at first believed. 

He soon saw that though the city could not be 
carried by assault it could be starved into submission, 
and by the beginning of February he was playing 
a waiting game. 

Famine stared the citizens in the face, and more 
and more eagerly they watched for help from outside, 
where the Prince was doing his utmost to bring relief. 
But as usual he was sadly handicapped by lack of 
men and money. He made several attempts to raise 
the siege, but all failed. 

Inside the city the half-starved burghers held out 
and repelled Spanish attacks with unwavering 
courage. Alva himself, as ready to praise his foes 
as his friends, admitted that "never was a place 
defended with such skill and bravery as Haarlem." 

The end began in May, when the Prince's fleet on 

121 



JJ^illiam the Silent 

Haarlem Lake was utterly defeated by th$ Spaniards. 
In the city people were dying daily of starvation, 
and nettles and weeds were eagerly eaten by the sur- 
vivors. Haarlem surrendered in July, after a siege 
which had lasted for seven months. 

Alva's fury at the time it had taken to fall was 
expressed in a ghastly slaughter of two thousand 
three hundred of the gallant, famished inhabitants. 
In seven months Haarlem lost, by siege or massacre, 
over five thousand of her bravest and best. 



122 



CHAPTER XVIII: The 

Going of Alva 

FtOMthe ruins of Haarlem Alva took his army 
northward to Alkmaar, a little town situated 
among the lakes and canals of North Holland. 
Not far away was the village of Egmont, with the 
rugged walls of Egmont Castle, which had been the 
home of the ill-fated Count, rising in its midst. 

Orange sent eight hundred soldiers to garrison 
Alkmaar, and hardly had they taken up their quarters 
within the walls when the Spanish army arrived, 
burned Egmont village to ashes and invested 
Alkmaar so closely that, as Alva expressed it, "it 
was impossible for a sparrow to enter or go out of 
the city." 

The Duke wrote to Philip that as gentleness (by 
which he meant his treatment of Haarlem) had 
proved useless, he should try the effect of severity on 
Alkmaar. He was determined, he said, not to leave 
a soul alive in the place. 

The contest was a terribly unequal one, for the 
besieged had only their small garrison and thirteen 
hundred untrained burghers to oppose against a 
large and experienced Spanish army numbering 
sixteen thousand men. The citizens of Alkmaar 
fought like heroes, however, side by side with the 
military, and looked to the Father of their Country 
to help them from without. 

Their chief hope lay in the friendly sea, which, 
though at ordinary times the Hollanders' worst 
foe, fought with them against the might of Spain. 
Alkmaar was only a few miles from the coast, and 

123 



William the Silent 

by opening the dykes and flooding the intervening 
country the town could be saved. 

This was hard for the farmers, whose crops would 
be entirely spoilt by the water, but after a seven 
weeks' siege the plan was adopted. The Spaniards, 
finding their camp flooded by the rising waters, were 
forced to raise the siege and beat a hurried retreat. 
For the patriots it was a great victory, when for the 
first time a veteran Spanish army, led by an ex- 
perienced general, had to retire from the field 
discomfited. 

But the Prince's feats during this time were not 
warlike ones only; in other directions he achieved 
much during the second half of 1573. Through 
Louis he was in treaty with the French court for help 
in the war, though it was difficult for the Nassaus to 
look upon Charles IX as a friend since the massacre 
of the year before. 

With Louis away, William's toils were much in- 
creased. He had the affairs of a whole nation on 
his shoulders, a terribly unequal warfare to carry 
on as well, and no one to look to but himself. The 
Father of his Country often felt more alone than 
the most friendless beggar in the streets, for, though 
he had mother, brothers, sisters and children, all 
were either too distant or too young to be in any 
sense a support to him in his life-work. 

"Our affairs are in pretty good condition in 
Holland and Zeeland, if I only had some aid," he 
wrote. "'Tis impossible for me to support alone 
so many labours, and the weight of such great affairs 
as come upon me hourly — financial, political, 
military. I have no one to help me, not a single man, 

124 



The Going of Alva 

wherefore I leave you to suppose in what trouble 
I find myself." 

In the midst of his other work Orange yet made 
time to write two stirring appeals on behalf of his 
country. The "Address" was sent to the States- 
General, which had been summoned by Alva and 
was sitting at Brussels, and called on the nation 
to resist Philip's tyranny, pointing out what the 
valiant little province of Holland had already 
accomplished. 

The "Epistle" was written almost at the same time 
and was addressed to Philip in the names of the 
Prince of Orange and the Estates of Holland and 
Zeeland. It rehearsed the dreadful condition to 
which Spanish injustice had brought the Nether- 
lands, and declared that for this reason only had the 
people taken up arms. It was such a bold, passion- 
ate defence as none but Orange could write, but it 
had no effect on the King. 

Alva suffered one more check to add misery to 
his unhappy position. A few days after Alkmaar 
was saved, Count Bossu, who was in command of a 
Spanish fleet in the Zuider Zee, was defeated and 
taken prisoner by a somewhat smaller Dutch force 
under Admiral Dirkzoon. 

And now Alva's reign of intolerance and cruelty 
was drawing to a close. The Duke was old and dis- 
graced, for of late his cunning in warfare had deserted 
him. He had long ago quarrelled with his council, 
and Viglius the Frisian scholar, who had once been 
his devoted slave, now openly hated him. Through- 
out the length and breadth of the Netherlands his 
name was regarded with a loathing and horror 

* 2 5 



Tf^illiam the Silent 

that had probably never been equalled either before 
or since. 

For some time past Alva had been begging the 
King to relieve him of his post and in November 
1579 his successor, Don Luis de Requesens, Grand 
Commander of Castile, arrived in Brussels. A month 
later the broken old Duke, complaining sadly that 
with all his hard work he had not won the King's 
approval, quitted the Netherlands for ever. 

During the six years he had been in command more 
than eighteen thousand persons had been executed 
by his orders, while there is no means of counting the 
number who had died by massacre or in warfare. 
The news of his departure was everywhere received 
with the greatest rejoicings, and if the people had 
dared they would have celebrated the happy day 
with fireworks. 

Alva's successor, Requesens, was hailed with joy. 
People felt that he could not govern worse than the 
departed Duke, and there was always the chance 
that he might rule a great deal better. 

The new governor began by holding out hopes of 
peace, and both sides would have been thankful to 
end the ruinously expensive war, but neither party 
would yield a single point. The Prince of Orange 
still demanded what he had done from the outset — 
freedom of worship for every sect, government by 
natives only, and the restoration of all the privileges 
of the Netherlands. 

Requesens, short of money and with troops that 
mutinied constantly, went so far as to suggest that 
those heretics who wished should return to the 
Catholic faith, while those who clung to Protestantism 

126 



The Going of Alva 

should be allowed to betake themselves and all their 
goods into lifelong exile. William never flinched 
from his position, and the grudging offer was firmly 
declined. 

Requesens then changed peaceful tactics to warlike 
ones. Mondragon was being closely besieged by the 
patriots in Middelburg, on the Isle of Walcheren, 
which was the only city in Zeeland not yet in the 
Prince's hands. Both sides understood the im- 
portance of its fate, for if it fell the Spanish hold 
on Zeeland would be entirely lost. 

The Grand Commander sent two fleets to the 
Scheld, one under Julian Romero, the other under an 
admiral named D'Avila, with orders that they were 
to make a combined effort to save Middelburg. 

At the end of January 1574, they came into con- 
flict with Admiral Boisot, who was lying in wait 
in the Scheld with a powerful fleet, near a town called 
Bergen. As usual the Netherlanders, who were so 
often defeated on land, proved invincible on the sea, 
and the Spaniards retreated with a loss of fifteen 
ships and many hundred men. 

Three weeks later the starving city surrendered 
on honourable terms granted by the Prince of 
Orange, who was now master of the whole province of 
Zeeland. 



127 



"Pray for rescue, wives and 
mothers, — 
Pray to-day !" the soldier said; 
" To-morrow death's between us 
And the wrong and shame we 
dread." 

Oh, they listened, looked and 

waited, 
Till their hope became despair; 
And the sobs of low bewailing 
Filled the pauses of their prayer. 
John Greenleaf Whittier 



CHAPTER XIX: Mook Heath 
and Ley den 

WHILE William was directing operations 
around Middelburg, Louis was busy at 
the French court, where his eloquence 
and boldness of speech procured a large sum of 
money and promises of further help from Charles 
IX. In Germany Louis raised a small army of dis- 
orderly mercenaries and raw volunteers with the 
funds thus provided, and arranged to join his 
brother, so that the two together might relieve 
Leyden, which was being besieged by the Spaniards. 

From beginning to end the march was an un- 
fortunate one. Louis, with his brothers John and 
Henry, and Duke Christopher, a German nobleman, 
entered the Netherlands in February by way of the 
Rhine. He encamped near Maestricht, on the 
Meuse, intending to capture this city, though many 
of his mutinous troops had already deserted him. 

William, who was in command of a small force, did 
his best to join the invading force, but ere he could 
succeed a large Spanish army swooped down on the 
Meuse and caught Louis in a terribly unfavourable 
position on Mook Heath. Cramped in a small space 
between two rivers, the Meuse and the Waal, the 
patriot army had little chance of a victory. The 
Spaniards cut them to pieces, and then butchered 
the survivors. 

It was a sad, sad day for the Netherlands and for 
the Nassau family. Count John escaped, but Louis, 
Henry and Duke Christopher were never seen again. 
Their bodies were never recovered, but there can be 

129 



William the Silent 

no doubt that all three perished on the bloody field 
of Mook Heath, giving their lives for a country not 
their own, save by generous adoption. 

The gallant, daring, reckless Louis, still in the 
prime of life, and Henry, only twenty-four years old, 
died brave deaths in the cause of Dutch freedom, and 
their names will ever be remembered with loving 
respect and admiration. 

News travelled slowly in those days, and it was 
some weeks before anything but vague rumours 
reached the Prince. It was only when no reply 
came to his repeated letters that he began to fear for 
his brothers' fate. When at last he was forced to 
believe them dead he felt the loss deeply, and turned 
more and more for help and consolation to John, the 
only brother now left to him. 

The poor old mother at Dillenburg grieved sadly 
but proudly for Louis, her "heart's cherished son," 
and for Henry, the youngest of all her seventeen 
children, but she accepted the bereavement as God's 
will. 

In the grief and discouragement which came to 
William after Mook Heath, there was only one small 
success to cheer his heart. 

The Spanish soldiery had received no pay for three 
years, and immediately after the battle serious 
mutiny broke out in their ranks. With great diffi- 
culty Requesens raised funds to satisfy them, and 
with their newly gained wealth they held high revel 
at Antwerp. 

While the feasting and jollity were at their height, 
Admiral Boisot, quick to seize his opportunity, 
sailed up the Scheld and captured or destroyed 

130 



Mook Heath and Ley den 

fourteen Spanish ships which lay at anchor in the 
river. The merry mutineers rushed to arms in the 
midst of their festivities, but were too late to save 
the ships or prevent one of their admirals from fall- 
ing into Boisot's hands. 

Now the Prince had to put aside private griefs, 
and give his whole attention to the unfortunate city 
of Leyden, which stood in the gravest danger. For a 
short time the siege had been interrupted by the 
advance of Count Louis' army, but no sooner were 
the battle of Mook Heath and the mutiny over than 
the Spaniards closed once more round the town 
(May, 1574). If the citizens had been wise they 
would have made use of this precious interval to 
add to their stores of food, but by some grave mis- 
take this was not done. 

Possibly this neglect was due to the fact that the 
Grand Commander had not only offered a pardon if 
the town would surrender, but had set up reforms in 
several directions. By his orders the hated Council 
of Troubles and the Tenth Penny were both abol- 
ished, Alva's statute was broken up, and other hope- 
ful changes were made. 

There was a small party within Leyden which was 
very anxious to accept Requesens' offer, but the 
majority stood out boldly for Orange and liberty. 

Of all the horrible sieges, of which this war was 
full, that of Leyden was probably the most ghastly. 
The first investment had lasted for nearly six 
months, and the town was enfeebled and ill-equipped 
in consequence. Plague stalked through the ranks 
of both besiegers and besieged, claiming many vic- 
tims, and within the walls famine was its grim com- 

131 



William the Silent 

panion; yet still the defences held, and neither 
side would yield. 

William the Silent suffered the keenest anxiety 
for the fate of heroic little Leyden, and all that 
mortal man could accomplish he did to save it. 
He well knew that its only hope must come from the 
water which had befriended Alkmaar, for he had no 
army strong enough to dislodge the Spaniards in a 
land fight. 

A glance at the map will show you that Leyden is 
in the province of Holland, six miles from the nearest 
shores of the German Ocean. All the land between 
the town and the sea lay below the level of high tide, 
and but for the dykes would have been flooded daily. 

William went into camp at a spot between Delft 
and Rotterdam, from which he could control all the 
dykes near the besieged town; from there he worked 
for Leyden, and urged that the intervening country 
should be flooded, no matter at what sacrifice. For 
every objection made he had an answer ready. 

"If the dykes are opened the crops will be 
ruined," said the people. 

"Better a drowned land than a lost land," the 
Prince replied. 

Finally, in August, consent was given, cattle and 
live stock were removed to places of safety, a large 
fleet of flat-bottomed boats was loaded with pro- 
visions for the starving city, and the dykes were 
pierced. 

It was not a day too soon, for in Leyden all the 
bread had been eaten long ago and the inhabitants 
had been half starved for many weeks. On August 
21st they managed to send word by pigeon post to 

132 



Mook Heath and Ley den 

the Prince that their food supplies would not last 
more than four days longer. 

When this dispatch reached the camp the waters 
were rising fast, but the Prince, worn out with toil 
and anxiety, lay seriously ill of fever. From his sick 
bed he wrote back, encouraging them to hold out 
yet a few days more, till the floods should be deep 
enough for his boats. 

His doctors were in despair, declaring that the 
Prince would die if he insisted on working while his 
condition was so alarming, but nothing could take 
his mind from Leyden. His unrest is not to be 
wondered at when we remember that, apart from the 
dreadful fate of his friends within the walls in case of 
surrender, Leyden was the key of Holland. If Ley- 
den fell into Requesens' hands, Holland, the last 
hope of the patriots, must surely follow. 

To the joy of the whole nation the Prince's fever 
gradually abated, and by the beginning of September 
his preparations were completed and the fleet set 
out on its voyage across the drowned land. For the 
first mile or two all went well, but as they neared 
Leyden the level of the ground rose, with the result 
that the water became shallower — too shallow even 
for such flat boats as those Boisot had chosen. 

With a west wind the sea would have been driven 
inland in sufficient depth to float the relieving fleet, 
but most unfortunately the breeze blew for days off 
the land, causing the water to sink rather than rise. 
The whole fleet lay becalmed midway on its voyage, 
unable either to retire or advance. 

Within Leyden the hopes aroused by William's 
letter grew dimmer and fainter with every hour that 

*33 



William the Silent 

passed. Wasted men and women, almost too weak 
to stand, watched unceasingly from the top of a 
tower within the walls, but saw no sign of their 
deliverers. 

Almost the last of their food was gone, and the 
starving creatures fed on mice, rats, and even the 
green leaves from the trees and the weeds that grew 
between the cobble stones which paved the streets. 
Every day scores died from hunger or the plague, 
leaving the survivors with hardly strength enough 
to bury them. 

Ley den was at its last gasp before relief drew near, 
in the form of a gale from the north-west, combined 
with a spring tide. The ocean rushed furiously 
over the land, and soon the depth of the water might 
be measured by feet instead of inches. By October 
SndBoisot's fleet was released from its imprisonment. 

On went the boats, defeating a few Spanish senti- 
nel ships at dead of night, and coming within bow- 
shot of the town by dawn. Requesens' camp was 
flooded out by the still rising waters, and as day 
broke he fled toward the Hague. Many of his 
troops were drowned on the way, or harpooned by 
Boisot's ferocious Sea Beggars. 

A few hours later the patriot Admiral came into 
Leyden, where the citizens received him with a 
thankfulness too deep for words. As the triumphant 
fleet rowed along the canals the pitying sailors threw 
bread right and left to the famishing people in the 
streets. Then all made their way to the great 
church of Leyden, where they offered solemn thanks- 
giving for the miraculous escape of the town. 

The next day William insisted on coming himself, 

i34 



Mook Heath and Leyden 

though he was only half recovered from his danger- 
ous sickness. The wind, as if it sympathised with the 
patriots, had changed its quarter again, and was 
now driving the water back seawards. 

The rebuilding of the dykes was begun at once, 
and as a reward for its heavy suffering, the Prince 
established in Leyden a university which is well 
known and highly esteemed to this day. 



i3S 



The Abbess was of noble blood, 
But early took the veil and hood 
Ere upon life she cast a look, 
Or knew the world that she forsook 

Sir Walter Scott 



CHAPTER XX: Charlotte of 
Bourbon 

WHEN the long strain of the siege of Leyden 
was over, there came a lull in the war. 
The Spaniards had suffered a severe 
defeat, and Requesens would gladly have ended the 
fighting. But, though Spain was willing to yield 
slightly, the difference in opinion between sovereign 
and rebels was too great ever to be bridged. The 
overtures of peace ended, as others had done, in 
nothing. 

To the Prince of Orange, the breathing space after 
Leyden was saved gave an opportunity for altering 
the government of Holland. For the time being he 
and the Estates divided authority, but this system 
was working unsatisfactorily and hampered all his 
actions. Accordingly he summoned the Estates of 
Holland and proposed either that he should have 
absolute control or that the Estates should assume 
this position themselves, and allow him to retire 
finally to a quiet life at Dillenburg. 

He assured them that he had not grown weary of 
the struggle; if they chose he would continue to direct 
matters, and would shed his last drop of blood in the 
service of his country. But if he stayed they must 
give him greater power, so that he could act freely. 

The Estates were startled, but they well knew how 
little they could do without the Prince, and agreed 
to his proposal at once. William the Silent was 
appointed Governor, or Regent, of Holland, "there 
being conferred on his Excellency absolute power, 
authority and sovereign control in the conduct of 

i37 



Tf^illiam the Silent 

common affairs of the land without exception/' 
Which meant that henceforward Orange was the 
ruler of the province of Holland, as much a king 
as Philip II, though in a smaller country than Spain. 
But for a little while Philip was still, in name, Count 
of the Netherlands. 

The winter and spring of 1575 passed uneventfully 
in the useless negotiations for peace, but in the early 
summer one important event took place. This was 
the union of the two provinces of Holland and 
Zeeland under the rule of the Prince. 

It was a great step forward, for one of the chief 
troubles of the Netherlands was that the different 
parts of it would not act together. Each province 
and city had its own government, and jealousy be- 
tween the various bodies was very strong. William 
had always realized that " union is strength/' and 
it was owing to his influence that Holland and 
Zeeland joined hands in June, 1575. 

One of the articles of union decreed that the Prince 
of Orange was to protect the Protestant worship, 
and suppress the Roman Catholic religion. William 
was tolerant in advance of his time, as we know, and 
would not consent to the persecution of Papists. He 
insisted that the words "Roman Catholic religion 55 
should be taken out, and the Estates unwillingly 
agreed to replace them by the vague phrase, "re- 
ligion at variance with the gospel/ 5 All his life 
through, William was determined to put a stop to 
persecution of any kind. 

In our eyes these Reformers of the sixteenth 
century may seem very narrow-minded and bigoted, 
but they went a good way for men who had suffered 

138 



Charlotte of Bourbon 

so terribly from the effects of Catholic bitterness as 
they had done. 

About this time, William, who was generally so 
cautious and prudent, acted in his private life in a 
way that angered friends and foes alike. This was 
in the matter of his third marriage, which took place 
in the summer of 1576. As in the case of Anne of 
Saxony, many difficulties were raised by relations, 
and months passed in correspondence. 

The bride was Charlotte of Bourbon, a younger 
daughter of Louis, Duke of Montpensier. From the 
beginning it had been decided that she should be a 
nun, and when still quite a little girl she was confided 
to the care of her aunt, the Abbess of the convent of 
Jouarre. When the Abbess died some years later, 
Charlotte, though only about twelve years old, 
was forced to take the vows of a nun, so that she 
might succeed her aunt as abbess, and thus keep the 
rich revenues of the convent in the family. 

The little girl was educated carefully for her re- 
sponsible duties, but she was never happy and hated 
the convent life she was obliged to lead. When she 
was about eighteen she made a solemn statement that 
she had been forced to take the vows against her will. 
As time went on she came under Protestant in- 
fluences, and she grew to detest being abbess to such 
a degree that in 1572 she left the convent for ever. 

In the eyes of the Catholics this was one of the 
most dreadful crimes a Catholic could commit. Her 
father was so wrathful that Charlotte could not go 
back home, and consequently she made her way to 
Germany, to the Elector Palatine, who had shown 
himself a true friend to all Protestants. 

i39 



TVilliam the Silent 

He received her very kindly, but failed to soften 
the feelings of her relations. The Duke of Mont- 
pensier wrote bitterly that "she is the first of her 
race to desert the holy faith of her ancestors/' 

Three years later William of Orange sent an offer 
of marriage to Charlotte. He had heard much of 
her fine character, and longed for a companion in 
his lonely life. Anne of Saxony was still alive at this 
time, but she had treated him very badly, was hope- 
lessly mad, and he no longer counted her as his wife. 

There was no regular system of divorce in the 
early days of Protestantism, but several eminent 
Reformed preachers declared that in their opinion 
the Prince was free to marry again. William acted 
on this counsel in the face of much opposition, and 
the marriage took place. 

From a political point of view the Prince could 
hardly have done anything more unwise, for the 
wedding offended everybody, and particularly those 
who might have helped the Netherlands. 

Orange's German friends were scandalized that 
he should wed another wife while their kinswoman 
Anne was still alive, and Charlotte's Catholic re- 
lations at the French court considered it the height 
of wickedness for a nun to marry. Even good John 
of Nassau was grieved and shocked. 

In spite of all this disturbance, Charlotte made the 
best of wives. She and William lived together very 
happily, and in course of time had six daughters 
— Louise, Elizabeth, Catherine, Charlotte Flandrina, 
Charlotte Brabantina and Emilie. Before her death 
she had the happiness of being reconciled to her father. 

By this time the Grand Commander had found that 

140 



Charlotte of Bourbon 

peace could not be made, and he renewed the war 
with greater success than in 1574. 

"They stormed Oudewater (a town in Holland) 
and delivered it over to all imaginable cruelties, 
sparing neither sex nor age," wrote William to John. 
Schoonhoven, warned by this fate, surrendered 
without fighting. Next came a wonderful Spanish 
exploit which rivalled Mondragon's night march to 
Tergoes three years before, and took place in the 
same part of the country. 

Starting from the island of Tholen, which Mon- 
dragon had captured in 1572, Requesens' soldiers 
waded on a stormy night through six miles of neck- 
deep water. They had only flashes of lightning 
to illumine their way, and part of the time they 
were marching under the fire of the patriot vessels. 
This time the water proved their friend, protecting 
their bodies from the shots of the enemy. The 
Zeelanders on board attacked them not only with 
musketry, but with harpoons, boat-hooks and 
flails. 

Many were the silent conflicts fought shoulder 
deep in the water; many were the unfortunate 
Spaniards struck down at each flash of lightning. 

In spite of darkness and the sea, fire, sword and 
foes, on went the indomitable little band, arriving, 
after a six hours 5 journey, on the island of Duive- 
land. They ate a little of the food they had brought 
with them, prayed to the Virgin and fell upon their 
foes. 

Charles Boisot, brother of the Admiral, who was 
in command upon the island, was accidentally killed 
by his own men, and after that panic seized the 

141 



JVilliam the Silent 

patriots, who had little expected a Spanish attack. 
They fell an easy prey to the gallant invaders. 

But the work of the Grand Commander's troops 
was not yet over. From Duiveland they waded 
across a second and narrower strait to another 
island, that of Schouwen. Here again they were 
completely successful. 

The soldiers paid by the States behaved in a most 
cowardly manner when their foes arose suddenly 
out of the sea and fled within the walls of Ziericksee, 
near by. The town was immediately invested by 
Mondragon, and underwent a long siege, the result 
of which will be told later. 



142 



When the Father of his Country 

Through the northland riding came, 

And the roofs were starred with banners, 
And the steeples rang acclaim; . . . 

Slowly passed that august presence 

Down the thronged and shouting street. 
John Greenleaf Whittier 



CHAPTER XXI : The Hour 

of Success 

THE loss of the Zeeland islands was a great 
blow to the patriots, for it cut Zeeland into 
two portions — under Requesens and under 
Orange respectively. The latter saw clearly that 
the time had come for the country to renounce 
allegiance to Philip II in word, as they had long 
done in deed, and to offer the sovereignty to some 
other monarch who would help them with men and 
money to free themselves from Spain. 

"This land," said William, "is a rich bride, for 
whom there are many suitors." 

Accordingly, in October the Estates met at Delft, 
and all agreed that they must forsake Philip and seek 
foreign aid. Only the two small provinces of Holland 
and Zeeland were concerned in this step, and it was 
these two which afterward became the basis of the 
great and unconquerable Dutch Republic. 

Early in 1576 a new turn was given to affairs by 
the sudden death of Requesens. His end was so 
unexpected that Philip, away in Spain, had no 
time to appoint a successor, and the confusion 
that was caused among the Spanish soldiery and 
at government head-quarters in Brussels, was all 
to the advantage of the patriots. 

The Prince was quick to seize his opportunity, 

143 



JVilliam the Silent 

and, thanks to his activity, a new, closer and more 
satisfactory alliance between Holland and Zeeland, 
known as the Union of Utrecht, was formed. William 
would dearly have liked to include a larger portion 
of the Netherlands, but the remaining provinces 
were mostly loyal to Spain. 

Besides, in the south, originally the most strongly 
Protestant of the whole country, Alva's unceasing 
persecutions had had a great effect on the Reformed 
religion, and many people had returned to the 
Catholic faith. The fifteen provinces were divided 
from the two by the deep gulfs of allegiance and 
religious belief, and, at that time at least, co-opera- 
tion was impossible. 

The Union of Delft was signed in March, 1576. 
Three months later Ziericksee was forced to surrender 
to Mondragon. The loss of this important town 
was a great disappointment to William, who wrote, 
"Had we received the least succour in the world from 
any side, the poor city should never have fallen." 

He had done his best to send Ziericksee help by 
sea, but his fleet was defeated, and brave Boisot, 
who was in command, lost his life in the attempt. 

The moment the long siege ended, the Spanish 
troops broke out into violent mutiny. Nothing 
would restrain them; they seized towns and money 
and kept the whole country in a state of terror. 
Finally they took possession of Antwerp, burnt and 
plundered the city, and treated its inhabitants with 
the most horrible cruelty, slaying and torturing 
them in hundreds. 

When the news of the "Spanish Fury, 55 as it was 
called, spread over the country, despairing horror 

144 




p 
fa 

a 



55 



The Hour of Success 

for a while broke down the barriers which difference 
of race and religion had set up. 

Urged by the Prince, who worked tirelessly, north 
and south forgot their disagreements, and, remember- 
ing only their common wrongs, bound themselves 
together in a league called the Pacification of Ghent. 
In this confederation the religious difficulty was laid 
aside for future settlement, the Prince's hope being 
that Roman Catholics and Protestants would prove 
tolerant to one another. 

Hardly was the Pacification signed, when the new 
governor of the Netherlands arrived, disguised, for 
some unexplained reason, as a Moorish slave. This 
was Don John of Austria, Philip's half-brother, a 
brilliant soldier and handsome cavalier of thirty, 
who imagined that he was setting forth to conquer 
the world. 

While William had been painfully trying to bring 
liberty and light into the darkness of the Netherlands, 
the picturesque Don John had reaped great glory 
from a romantic crusade against the Turks. Now 
the real and the gilded hero stood face to face. 

Philip had directed his brother to be friendly to- 
ward the rebellious provinces, but to yield nothing 
to them — rather an impossible attitude, as Don 
John soon discovered. Before long he was forced 
to consent to William's two points — firstly, that the 
Spanish troops should leave the country; secondly, 
that he himself should confirm the Pacification of 
Ghent. 

These concessions were words, not deeds, for 
though the second point was promised in a treaty 
called, very inappropriately, the Perpetual Edict, 

145 



TVilliam the Silent 

no guarantees for its fulfilment were given. As 
William knew to his cost, Philip II, the real director 
of affairs, was as slippery as an eel, and highly skilled 
in the art of wriggling out of his promises. 

However, the first pledge really was fulfilled, for 
in April, 1577, funds were raised to settle the arrears 
of the men's pay, and the Spanish soldiery quitted 
the Netherlands. The joy of the people was intense, 
and an immense crowd watched the regiments em- 
bark. The Netherlanders' happiness would have 
been greater still but for the fact that ten thousand 
German soldiers still remained in the country. 
Besides, the Spaniards might come back; for who 
could trust the word of Philip II? This foreboding 
proved later to be only too well founded. 

When the troops had gone Don John was allowed 
to enter Brussels in state, and he established himself 
with great pomp in the capital. But he soon found 
how uncertain his position was, for his brilliant enemy 
beset him on all sides. The Spanish grandee might 
be a fine general, but he was a poor statesman, and 
William was much too clever for him. 

Orange continually pressed that, now the Paci- 
fication had been signed by the King, it should be at 
once carried out. Poor Don John, who did not dare 
to yield except on paper, grew so weary and baffled 
that he retired from Brussels. On the battle-field 
he had confidence in his own powers, so he renewed 
the war by seizing the citadel of Namur. 

This done, he wasted much time in plotting with 
a French princess who chanced to be passing through 
the town. Their joint schemes led to nothing, and 
while Don John talked to a beautiful woman, William 

146 



The Hour of Success 

the Silent worked and watched with excellent 
results. 

At last the seventeen provinces were united, the 
Spanish troops were gone, and success came rapidly 
to the Father of his Country. The Spaniards gave 
up Ziericksee, and once more the whole of Zeeland 
was under the Prince's control; Breda, his own town, 
was recovered, and Utrecht, Haarlem, Ghent and 
Antwerp accepted his authority. 

William had entire command north of the mouth 
of the Scheld, and south of that boundary his power 
was far larger than Don John's. His greatest triumph 
of all came when he was entreated to enter Brussels 
in state as protector of the Netherlands. 

In 1567 William of Orange had left Brussels hur- 
riedly to take refuge at Dillenburg. He had never 
visited the capital in the ten years that had passed 
since then. He received the invitation with great 
pleasure, but the consent of Holland and Zeeland was 
difficult to obtain, and Princess Charlotte dreaded 
his going to the city where Egmont and Horn had 
met their deaths. It was with many tears and fore- 
bodings that she watched her husband depart. 

He first went to Antwerp, where he received the 
most enthusiastic of welcomes, and after spending 
a few days there journeyed to Brussels by canal. 
Three gorgeously decorated barges were provided 
for the short voyage. The first was spread with a 
lordly banquet; the second, hung with the banners 
of the seventeen provinces, was for the Prince; while 
the third was filled with men dressed in emblematic 
costumes representing the downfall of Spain and the 
triumph of Liberty. 

147 



JVilliam the Silent 

September 23rd, 1577, was the proudest day of 
William's whole life, in which there were so few 
moments of triumph and so many of defeat. While 
his procession was still several miles from Brussels 
hundreds of the citizens trooped out to meet and 
greet him. He was escorted to the capital by a huge 
crowd, which kept pace on either bank of the canal 
with his boat's progress along the water. 

"Long live Father William!" they cried again 
and again with the utmost affection and respect. 
Nothing they could do was good enough for their 
leader, no love of theirs sufficiently strong to show 
their gratitude. The occasion was marked by the 
most splendid ceremonies that the citizens could 
devise. 

This visit to Brussels marked the height of the 
Prince's career. In public he was honoured and 
adored by a whole nation, and in private he was 
passing through one of the happiest, periods of his 
life. 

The marriage that, in the eyes of his friends, had 
promised so ill, had turned out exceedingly well. 
Charlotte of Bourbon was an ideal wife, and was 
now the mother of two little girls, Louise Juliana 
and Elizabeth. Her step-children loved her dearly, 
and the family party at the Prinsenhof (Prince's 
house), as William's residence was called, was a very 
happy one. "Our girls, big and little," Charlotte 
affectionately called William's five daughters. To 
the Prince himself she was all that was sympathetic, 
good and true. 



148 



Creed and rite perchance may differ, 
Yet our faith and hope be one. 

John Geeenleap Whittier 



CHAPTER XXII: The 
Renewal of Tf^ar 

THE next few months passed in negotiations 
and correspondence, plots and appoint- 
ments, but without actual fighting. 

William broke off the attempts which Don John 
was making to patch up peace, for there could be no 
lasting settlement when neither side would yield the 
main point — the religious question. His firm reso- 
lution was a relief to his mother, the good old Count- 
ess Juliana, who had feared he might be tempted to 
end the war on the Spanish terms. 

"High-born prince, heart-dear lord and son," 
she wrote about this time, "my heart longs for 
certain tidings of my lord, for methinks the peace 
now in prospect will prove but an oppression to soul 
and conscience. I trust my heart-dear lord and son 
will be supported by Divine grace to do nothing 
against God and his own soul's salvation." Then, 
with motherly care and remembrance of many at- 
tempts which his enemies had made to murder her 
son, she added: "I implore my lord not to allow 
himself to be persuaded to go to dangerous places, 
for the world is full of craft." 

Charlotte had felt the same about her husband's 
visit to Brussels, for William lived in the midst of 
stealthy foes, and his life was never safe. 

In the hour of greatest success the Prince had to 
face a new difficulty caused by that very success. 

149 



William the Silent 

Some of the great Netherland nobles, the Duke of 
Aerschot, Jerome Champagny and others, became 
very jealous of his hard- won influence in the coun- 
try, and tried to break his power by bringing in a for- 
eigner, whom they set up in a position of authority. 

Fortunately for the Prince, the Austrian noble 
they chose, the Archduke Matthias, brother of the 
Emperor of Germany, was very young, weak and 
easy-going. He had no will of his own, and though 
he ruled the country in name, William issued his own 
orders through him and in reality continued to govern. 

As a reply to this plot, the country showed its trust 
in Orange by appointing him Ruward of Brabant. 
The Ruward was not a dictator or a protector or 
a stadtholder, but had to perform some of the duties 
of each; he was the highest officer in the State, and 
the duration of the tenure of his office was not limited. 

At about the same period the fickle Duke of 
Aerschot was appointed Governor of Flanders by the 
State Council. Ghent, the capital of the province, 
was as turbulent a city now as it had been when the 
Emperor Charles V tamed it nearly forty years 
earlier. The Ghenters adored the Prince of Orange, 
but hated the Roman Catholic Aerschot, and, led by 
two young nobles named Imbize and Ryhove, they 
revolted against the Duke's appointment. 

An excited mob under Ryhove marched to the 
Duke's residence and took him prisoner. The crowd 
would have killed him more than once, but Ryhove 
placed himself in front of the governor, and saved 
his life at the risk of his own. The burghers declared 
that Aerschot was plotting with Don John against 
Orange, so they set up a government of their own, 

150 



The Renewal of War 

with Ryhove at their head, until William could make 
other arrangements for them. 

The revolution passed off from beginning to end 
without bloodshed or any other disorder, and a few 
weeks later the prisoner was set free. 

December, 1577, was an eventful month. On the 
7th, the States-General met and formally threw 
off the authority of Don John, declaring him an 
enemy to the country, and all who helped him, 
traitors and rebels, whose estates should be for- 
feited. This action was equal to a fresh declaration 
of war. 

Three days later a new Union of Brussels was 
signed, in which Roman Catholics and Reformers 
agreed each to worship as they thought right, and 
not to interfere with one another. At last, though 
not for long, William saw his dream of religious 
toleration realized. 

Immediately afterward war broke out afresh. 
The patriots had good hopes of success, for at last 
Elizabeth of England was willing to help them with 
money and troops. 

Don John was defiant and threatened many things. 

"His Catholic Majesty has commissioned me to 
make war upon these rebellious provinces/' he said, 
"and I will do so with all my heart." 

Unfortunately for the Netherlands he had good 
reason for his confidence, for Prince Alexander 
Farnese, Duke of Parma, and son of the Duchess 
Margaret, had just arrived in the Netherlands to 
help his uncle, bringing back with him the troops 
William had obliged Don John to send away a few 
months earlier. 

151 



William the Silent 

The forces of the States, though nearly as numer- 
ous as those on the Spanish side, had been put under 
the command of unworthy and jealous nobles. Two 
of them, Lalain and the Vicomte de Gand, were 
traitors to the cause. They were in the secret pay 
of Spain, and made an excuse to be absent from the 
army when the time for fighting came. 

In the early days of 1578 the two armies met at 
Gemblours, near Namur. The patriots were not 
ready to give battle, and were retiring in some dis- 
order, owing to the difficult nature of the ground, 
when the Prince of Parma — who, though quite 
young, was a magnificent soldier — fell upon them 
from behind and on one side at the same moment. 

The attack was unexpected, and the retreating 
troops were penned in on the second flank by a deep 
ravine. The men lost their heads entirely. Philip 
of Egmont, eldest son of the Count, did his best to 
rally them, but in vain; they broke ranks, and 
allowed the Spaniards to cut them down as a scythe 
levels a field of grass. 

In less than two hours nine or ten thousand men 
were either killed or taken prisoners, all their guns 
and baggage were captured, and the patriot army 
existed no longer. Parma won this brilliant victory 
without losing more than a score or so of his own 
men. It was small wonder that the Spanish 
soldiers were believed by the world of their day 
to be unconquerable. 

They were boldest of the bold, skilful, brutal, 
quick to take advantage of an enemy's weakness; 
veteran troops, with many years of fighting behind 
them, they were commanded by two of the finest 

152 



The Renewal of TV^ar 

generals then living, Don John of Austria and the 
Duke of Parma. 

It was hardly likely that the half-raw troops of 
the Netherland army, whose officers were unfaithful 
to their cause, or were young, inexperienced men, 
could compete against the Spanish armies. It is 
a proof of the Dutch doggedness and pluck that 
they ventured to do so time and again, often with 
failure, rarely with triumph, till after many heart- 
breaking years they succeeded at last in crushing the 
power of Spain for ever. 



J 53 



The seasons came, the seasons 
passed, 
They watched their fellows die; 
But still their thought was forward 
cast, 
Their courage still was high. 

Henry Newbolt 



CHAPTER XXIII: A Revolu- 
tion and a Victory 

THE Spaniards did not rest on the laurels 
won at Gemblours. Don John marched 
his army triumphantly through the eastern 
provinces, taking town after town all along his route. 
Some places submitted without resistance, some were 
reduced by siege; at all of them, when captured, 
the Spaniards perpetrated their usual cruelties. 

At Sichem, for instance, the commander was hanged 
from the frame of one of his own windows, while the 
garrison was exterminated. By their very brutalities 
the Spaniards roused the courage of their foes, for 
the most peaceable nation in the world will not 
submit to unlimited suffering. 

The defeat at Gemblours proved the death-blow 
to the authority of Matthias. At best this weak 
young man had been under Orange's thumb, and now 
that Roman Catholic plotting and treachery had led 
to disaster in the field, the people of Brussels spoke 
out hotly against the Popish nobles who had brought 
Matthias forward. In some ways the battle of 
Gemblours was a blessing in disguise to the patriots, 
for it united them more firmly than before and 
redoubled their loyalty to the Prince of Orange. 

What the cause of liberty lost at Gemblours it 
gained to a great extent at Amsterdam. This city, 
the capital of Holland, and ranking only after Brussels 
and Antwerp in importance in the whole Netherlands, 
had been one of the few places in the north to remain 
faithful to Philip. It was a large, rich camp of the 
enemy planted in the midst of friendly territory, 

i5S 



William the Silent 

and for years it had refused to accept William's 
terms. 

At last, a week or two after Gemblours, the city 
came to an arrangement with the Prince and the 
Estates, which is known as the "Satisfaction 55 of 
Amsterdam. By this treaty Roman Catholicism 
was established as the religion of Amsterdam, but 
toleration was secured for the Protestants, who 
were to be permitted to worship as they pleased 
outside the city walls. The agreement gave great 
joy to all Holland and Zeeland, and it was a triumph 
for William to accomplish this important step with- 
out any bloodshed. 

For some time past Philip II had been hardly hit 
by this ruinous war, which had dragged on for nearly 
ten years without crushing the dogged "men of 
butter/ 5 The Seigneur de Selles, brother of Noir- 
carmes, now arrived from Spain with fresh proposals 
of peace. As usual, neither party would yield one 
jot of its demands, and nothing remained but to 
fight out the quarrel to the bitter end. 

Preparations for renewed warfare were rapidly 
made. By means of more taxes and a loan which he 
raised from the burghers of Antwerp, William the 
Silent collected sufficient funds for a fresh army. In 
spite of the last defeat he again appointed discon- 
tented nobles — Aerschot, Lalain, Philip of Egmont 
and others — to the chief command. His motive in 
doing this was to soothe their unreasonable jealousy 
of himself. His intentions were excellent, but the 
result was bad, for nearly all the nobles, at one time 
or another, proved disloyal to their trust. 

Don John, on his side, had succeeded in per- 

156 



A Revolution and a Victory 

suading the King to send him a large sum of money, 
with which he was able to command a powerful 
army of thirty thousand men. 

Meanwhile, before fighting could begin, trouble 
occurred in Amsterdam. The Protestants there had 
increased rapidly since the "Satisfaction," and they 
were angry because all the magistrates were Catholics. 
The Reformers considered that they had not been 
fairly used in the carrying out of the treaty, and 
a revolution was headed by William Bardez, an 
ardent Protestant and follower of Orange. 

He arranged with Sonoy, who was governor of 
North Holland, to send a party of experienced troops 
to his aid, and many of the citizens promised to rise 
when Bardez gave the signal. This signal took the 
form of one of his friends stepping out on to the 
balcony of the council room, taking off his hat 
and then putting it on again. 

A moment before, the square outside had been 
quiet and well-nigh deserted. Now soldiers sprang 
up on all sides from the nooks where they had been 
hidden, and a sailor ran through the town waving a 
flag and shouting lustily: 

"All ye who love the Prince of Orange, take heart 
and follow me!" 

The citizens came out of their houses, well armed, 
and Bardez led a large body of men to the council 
room, where he arrested all the magistrates, while 
his confederates did the same to every priest they 
could discover. The prisoners believed they were 
going to certain death, but, instead, they were merely 
put outside the city walls and forbidden ever to 
come back again. 

iS7 



T^illiam the Silent 

The triumphant Protestants appointed Bardez 
and others of their number to replace the banished 
magistrates, and thus ended the peaceful revolution 
of Amsterdam. From that day forward the Pro- 
testants held the chief power in the capital of Holland, 
though the Prince of Orange insisted that they should 
be more tolerant to the Catholics than the Catholics 
had been to them. 

Shortly afterward another battle between Don 
John and the Estates took place at Rijnemants, where 
the royalists were defeated by a patriot army not 
much more than half as numerous as their own. 

It seemed now that the reverses which had befallen 
William the Silent and his troops so often had de- 
scended upon the Spaniards. Don John and Parma 
were both excellent generals, but lack of money and 
sickness among their men proved heavy drawbacks 
to their plans. Philip seemed to have forgotten 
them, and could not, or would not, send them funds 
— a fate from which all his lieutenants in the Low 
Countries suffered at one time or another. 

Gay Don John of Austria had changed sadly since 
his arrival in disguise two years earlier. Then he 
had been proud, confident, light-hearted, fresh from 
a great victory and feeling certain of winning further 
fame in the Netherlands. By the summer of 1578 
he was a broken-down, humiliated man in the grip 
of a dangerous fever. 

As he felt his strength ebbing he wrote piteous 
letters to the brother and master who had treated 
him so ill. 

"Thus I remain perplexed and confused," ran one 
epistle, "desiring, more than life, some decision on 

iS8 



A Revolution and a Victory 

your Majesty's part, for which I have implored so 
many times"; and again, later, "Our lives are at 
stake upon this game, and all we wish is to lose them 
honourably." 

Poor Don John! The hero of Lepanto deserved 
a better fate than to waste away in an empty pigeon- 
house, to which he had been moved from the camp, 
which was reeking with pestilence. At the last he 
appointed Parma to succeed him until the King 
should make his wishes known, and died on the first 
of October 1578. 



i59 



Where manly hearts were failing^ 

where 
The throngful streets grew foul 

with death. 

John Greenleaf Whittier 



CHAPTER XXIV: The 

Union of Utrecht 

WHILST Don John was dying on the heights 
above Namur, William had at last found 
a royal personage who was willing to act 
as the protector of the Netherlands. This was 
Francis, Duke of Alen9on and Anjou, and brother of 
the King of France. He was an entirely treacherous, 
false and unworthy man, and Orange knew it, but 
politically he was a powerful helper. The Prince 
risked using a bad instrument to aid a good cause. 

He believed that the Netherlands could not con- 
tinue the war without foreign help, and thought that 
the false Anjou would be a better helper than the in- 
tolerant Philip. 

In August, 1578, an agreement was drawn up, by 
which the Duke was to bring twelve thousand soldiers 
into the Netherlands, for three months, and smaller 
forces after that till the war ended. In return, the 
States-General named him "Defender of the Liberty 
of the Netherlands/ 5 and practically promised to 
make him their sovereign when the King of Spain 
should be finally overthrown. 

This same summer Orange arranged a Religious 
Peace, as it was called, giving freedom of worship 
to all. Unfortunately this broad-minded measure 
came to very little, for even the Prince's nearest and 
dearest did not sympathize with his wide toleration. 
Count John, now governor of Guelderland, was one 
of the strongest objectors to the Religious Peace. 

"Now that we have driven the Papists out of 
Guelderland," he said, "let us do our utmost to keep 

161 



TVilliam the Silent 

them outside." The Catholic province of Hainault 
disapproved for exactly the opposite reason. In 
fact, the Religious Peace pleased neither Catholic 
nor Protestant, and was never effectively carried out. 

The dying Don John had named his nephew Farnese 
to succeed him as governor of the Netherlands, and 
Philip soon confirmed this appointment. William 
saw at once that fresh dangers threatened his coun- 
try's cause, for the new Spanish commander was an 
even better soldier than Don John, a much cleverer 
man, and was, besides, as ruthless as Alva himself had 
been. All this boded ill for the Netherlands. 

Parma's task was made easier by the discord which 
tore the Low Countries, in spite of the union that 
was supposed to bind the seventeen provinces to- 
gether. In the southern Catholic portion of the land, 
which is now Belgium, there was a strong party of 
Malcontents, as they were called, who objected to 
being ruled by a Protestant like William of Orange. 
Also, as we have already seen, there were many jeal- 
ous nobles who longed for the overthrow of the 
people's hero, the Prince. 

Toward the end of 1578 the Malcontent party 
stirred up a revolt against the Reformed religion in 
the important city of Ghent. On the other hand, a 
counter-movement was led by Ryhove, the hero of 
the earlier rebellion, against the Duke of Aerschot. 
Ryhove was a bad, desperate man, who disgraced his 
cause by brutally hanging two citizens, Hessels, 
a former Blood-Councillor, and Visch. 

Next came a repetition of the image-breaking 
riots of 1566. The Ghenters rose against the Catho- 
lics, turned them all out of the city, and sacked their 

162 



The Union of Utrecht 

churches. This outbreak greatly enraged the Prince 
of Orange, who arrived at Ghent early in December, 
determined to put down the disturbances with a firm 
hand. 

As always in times of unrest, William stood out 
in bold relief, a tower of strength and sagacity. 

"I admire his wisdom daily more and more," said 
a supporter of his at this time; "I see those who 
profess themselves his friends causing him more 
annoyance than his foes; while, nevertheless, he 
ever remains true to himself, is driven by no tempests 
from his equanimity, nor provoked by repeated in- 
juries to immoderate action/' 

In less than a month the Prince had skilfully 
soothed all parties, and obtained their consent to a 
new religious peace, very similar to the one which had 
been drawn up the summer before. 

The next few months were most difficult ones for 
the lion-hearted Prince. Discord was rife all through 
the Netherlands, and plot and revolt followed one 
another incessantly. As a Dutch historian says, 
"There was nothing but dissensions, jealousies, 
heart-burnings, hatred; every one claimed to rule, 
no one would obey. 55 

Parma was clever enough to take full advantage 
of this confusion, and to draw away loyalty from 
William wherever he could. He used bribes freely 
to persuade men and cities to desert the Prince and 
return to the allegiance of Spain. 

Soon Parma had his reward, for at the beginning 
of 1579 the important Treaty of Arras was signed by 
the ten Roman Catholic provinces of the south. By 
it they united to maintain the old religion against 

163 



Vntliam the Silent 

the new — in other words, they gave up all attempt 
at freedom and submitted to Philip. 

The Protestants were quick to see the danger in 
which this split placed them, and in the same month 
the remaining provinces, Holland, Zeeland, Guelder- 
land, Utrecht, Overyssel, Friesland and Drenthe, 
boldly threw off the yoke of Philip and defended 
the Reformed faith by the Union of Utrecht. 

The Treaty of Arras at one stroke had undone the 
Pacification of Ghent, the Perpetual Edict and the 
Union of Brussels, all of which had aimed to unite 
the Catholics and Protestants; but the brave little 
Union of Utrecht proved the beginning of a nation 
which came to be as powerful and prosperous as ever 
Spain had been in her proudest days. 

By submitting to Philip the Catholic provinces 
saved themselves years of war, but lost independence 
and a glorious future. 

The Union of Utrecht was not so much due to 
William as to Count John. The Treaty of Arras was 
a heavy disappointment to the Prince, who saw now 
that his dreams of a united Netherlands would 
never come true. He began to understand that the 
Protestant north and the Catholic south were 
too utterly different ever to blend together. 

This has been proved all through their history. 
To-day Holland and Belgium are distinct and 
separate nations. They have been united more 
than once in their history, and the arrangement has 
always failed. 

It must not be supposed that Alexander Farnese 
had bribed instead of fighting. He had done both, 
with all his usual cleverness In March he came 

164 



The Union of Utrecht 

suddenly on the town of Maestricht, in Lifege, and laid 
siege to it. The garrison was brave, but small in 
numbers, and the Prince of Orange implored the 
States to send speedy aid to this important city, 
"the gate to Germany," as it was called. 

Inside the walls the burghers, and even their wives, 
fought side by side with the soldiers in defence of 
their town. Beyond the fortifications Parma at- 
tacked the gates, and set a number of miners at 
work to tunnel beneath the moat and walls, so that 
the defences might be blown up from underneath. 

There was great loss of life on both sides. Many 
of Parma's officers and men, including Count Berlay- 
mon,t, were killed in the assaults, while of the garrison 
only four hundred men remained, and they were 
nearly all wounded. William had collected a force 
which advanced to Maestricht, but found it im- 
possible to relieve the city, so closely was it invested 
by Parma and his troops. 

At last one night a Spanish sentinel, who was going 
his rounds outside the breastwork, found a small 
hole in it which had been made by the last assault. 
He enlarged the breach sufficiently to admit his body, 
and crept into the city, where he found that no watch 
was being kept. The inhabitants, one and all, were 
too worn out to do anything but sleep. 

The soldier returned quietly through the hole, 
and took his tale straight to Parma, who led a surprise 
assault just as dawn was breaking. The city was 
trapped in its sleep, and soon the battle turned to a 
massacre, for the Spaniards behaved with all their 
usual cruelty. In two days Maestricht was an empty 
and desolate ruin. 

165 



Oh, what a rash and bloody deed 
is this! 

William Shakespeare 



CHAPTER XXV: Varying 

Fortunes 

THE higher men rise, the more enemies are 
they likely to have. William the Silent 
knew this only too well, for not once, but 
many times had he suffered from the jealousy of 
men who did their best to steal his power. 

Since his early manhood bitter tongues had clacked 
against him. Granvelle, Margaret of Parma, Alva, 
the nobles, had all in turn blackened his character 
and adversely criticized his conduct. In these later 
years of his life it was still the same. 

People blamed him because Maestricht had been 
taken (though he had done his best to save it), just 
as they always blamed him when anything went 
wrong. He took their harsh words without reproach, 
and went quietly on with the work he felt called upon 
to do. About this time Philip offered him very 
rich bribes if he would submit to Spain, including 
the liberty of his eldest son, Philip William; these 
tempting proposals he steadfastly refused. 

Though Spanish gold could not buy "Father 
William," it drew away many of his supporters, and 
treachery began to be a painfully common thing. 
Even old, well-trusted men were not free from it. 
In 1579 the Seigneur de Bours, governor of Mechlin, 
made terms with Philip, and a few months later 
Count Renneburg, governor of Friesland and brother 
to Hoogstraaten, betrayed the town of Groningen 
into the hands of the Spaniards. Even William's 
own brother-in-law forsook him at last. 

Groningen was an important place, the capital of 

167 



JVilliam the Silent 

Friesland, and the patriots determined to recover 
it. It was therefore besieged by scanty forces under 
Sonoy, William Louis of Nassau (the son of Count 
John) and Count Hohenlohe. 

When the investment had lasted three months a 
body of troops arrived, which had been sent by Parma 
to the relief of the city. Hohenlohe made a forced 
march out to meet these troops, with the result that 
his men were exhausted and suffering agonies of thirst 
when they came up with the fresh royalist army. 

A battle was fought at Hardenberg Heath, at 
which Hohenlohe's forces were utterly defeated. The 
Spaniards relieved Groningen; some of the country 
people rose in rebellion, and, says Motley, "A small 
war now succeeded, with small generals, small armies, 
small campaigns and small sieges/ 5 

During these years the Prince of Orange was 
terribly lonely. He was often obliged to be away 
from Delft, where his wife and children had their 
home. Almost his only helper worthy of the name 
was his brother, and in 1580 Count John gave up his 
post in Guelderland and left the Netherlands for 
good. 

Honest, kindly, generous Count John! For 
thirteen years he had been the most loyal of helpers 
to his beloved elder brother, and of late he had en- 
dured many discomforts in carrying out his duties 
as Stadtholder in Guelderland. The Estates kept 
him so short of money that the only lodging he could 
afford was a wretched, badly built, comfortless 
barrack, often unheated in the bitterest weather. 
Sometimes he even had difficulty in providing himself 
and his servants with food. 

168 



Varying Fortunes 

"The baker has given notice that he will supply 
no more bread after to-morrow," he wrote to his 
brother in November, 1580, "unless he is paid. 
. . . The cook has often no meat to roast, so that we 
are frequently obliged to go supperless to bed." And 
this treatment, after the Count had for years given 
freely of all he had in the service of the Netherlands! 

The good old mother, Countess Juliana, had died 
the previous summer, and as his wife was also dead 
Count John felt that he was needed at home in 
Dillenburg to look after his large family and his 
estate. His withdrawal left William almost entirely 
alone, for Parma's bribes had wrought havoc among 
his few remaining friends. 

The Prince was now forty-seven years of age, but 
care and misfortune had worn him so that he looked 
quite an old man. The dark, handsome, Spanish- 
looking youth of a quarter of a century before, with 
his brown eyes and hair and brown peaked beard, 
was, in 1580, a careworn elderly man, partly bald, 
with a keen, much-lined face. There is a print in 
the great museum at Amsterdam, showing him at 
this age, dressed in a suit of armour, and looking 
weary and troubled. 

He had sufficient to harass his brave spirit, for in 
this same year Philip dealt him a fresh blow and a 
heavy one. By the advice of that cunning old fox, 
Cardinal Granvelle, the King of Spain published what 
is known as the Ban, a document which set forth 
William's offences, and offered a large reward to any- 
one who would compass his death. 

"We declare him traitor and miscreant, enemy of 
ourselves and of the country," part of the excom- 

169 



Tf^illiam the Silent 

munication ran. "We allow all to injure him in 
property or in life. And if anyone should be found 
sufficiently generous to rid us of this pest, delivering 
him to us alive or dead, or taking his life, we will 
cause to be furnished to him . . . the sum of twenty- 
five thousand crowns in gold. If he have committed 
any crime, however heinous, we promise to pardon him; 
and if he be not already noble, we will ennoble him 
for his valour." 

Henceforth the Prince's steps were dogged by 
would-be assassins. A few months later he made a 
formal reply to the Ban by publishing a long statement 
which is known as the Apology, in which he declared 
that a ruler who treated his subjects as Philip had 
done could expect nothing but rebellion. He closed 
with the motto he had always so worthily upheld — 
"I will maintain/' 

This same eventful year, 1580, the Estates of 
Holland and Zeeland offered the sovereignty of these 
two provinces to William. He steadily refused to 
accept it, for he still clung to the idea that the Duke 
of Anjou should rule the Netherlands. 

Meanwhile the war continued with more or less 
vigour, chiefly in the north-east. Renneberg, the 
traitor of Groningen, laid siege to Steenwyk, in the 
province of Drenthe. The patriots threw hollow 
balls containing letters, which promised relief, into 
the town, and in February, 1581, the siege was 
raised by John Norris, an English colonel who was 
fighting under the banner of Orange. 

The spring passed quietly, but during the summer 
a very important event took place at the Hague. 
Representatives of the seven provinces assembled 

170 




"THE PRINCE'S 



STErS WERE 

SASSINS"- 



DOGGED 
-Page 16S 



BY WOULD-BE AS- 



Varying Fortunes 

on July 15th, and solemnly gave up their allegiance 
to the King of Spain, declaring themselves entirely 
independent of his rule. Henceforward his name 
appeared no more on State documents; his seal was 
broken and replaced by that of the Prince of Orange. 
This action is known as the Abjuration. 

William still looked to Anjou as the future sov- 
ereign of the united provinces, but, though most of 
the country was willing to accept him, Holland and 
Zeeland would have no ruler but their dearly loved 
u Father William. 5 ' At last they persuaded the 
Prince to agree, at any rate for the moment, and 
in the same month that saw the act of abjuration 
he was invested with the temporary sovereignty 
of the two northern provinces. 

The Archduke Matthias had never been more than 
an unwanted pawn in the great game Orange was 
playing, and since Anjou's installation he had no 
longer the shadow of authority. He left the Nether- 
lands for good in October. 

Though weak, the Archduke had at least been 
loyal and honest, and the Estates voted him a yearly 
pension of fifty thousand florins. Whether it was or 
was not regularly paid by the much-taxed country, 
history does not say. 



171 



star of strength! I see thee 
stand 
And smile upon my pain; 
Thou beckonest with thy mailed 
hand. 
And I am strong again. 

Henry W. Longfellow 



CHAPTER XXVI: False 

Francis 

THE war dragged on. In the summer of 
1581 Parma besieged Cambray, but retired 
hurriedly from the town when Anjou ar- 
rived with a large force of French soldiers. But 
the Duke went to England, courting Queen Elizabeth, 
his troops melted away, and soon Parma found him- 
self free to attack another city. 

This time he chose Tournay, in Hainault, and 
invested it closely. Its governor, the Prince of 
Espinoy, was away fighting in the north, but his wife 
defied Alexander Farnese. She was a brave woman, 
and came of good fighting blood, for she was daughter 
of Count Horn's sister. 

During the siege she directed the work of defence 
herself, emboldening the garrison by her courage and 
steadfastness. Even when she was wounded in the 
arm during one of Parma's assaults on the town, she 
still persisted in keeping her place at the forefront 
of the fighting. 

Unfortunately Prince Alexander's forces were so 
strong that no relief could be brought from without, 
although Orange and the Estates did their best to 
drive away the Spanish army. Worse still, within 
the walls a mischievous priest stirred the Catholic 
citizens to revolt, and it became impossible to hold 
Tournay any longer. 

After two months of siege the brave Princess sur- 
rendered to Parma on honourable terms, and was 
allowed to retire from the city with all her property. 

"On leaving the gates," says Motley, " the Princess 

*73 



TVilliam the Silent 

was received with such a shout of applause from the 
royal army that she seemed less like a defeated com- 
mander than a conqueror/ 5 

In the meantime Father William was working 
earnestly to get the Duke of Anjou installed as 
sovereign of the Netherlands. Looking back to-day, 
it is difficult to understand the Prince's eagerness for 
this man to rule his dearly loved country, for if ever 
there was a dangerous, faithless and treacherous 
prince, it was Francis Hercules, Duke of Alen9on 
and Anjou. 

The royal family of France, the Valois, to which 
this man belonged, was an utterly bad one, and he, 
the youngest, was the worst of all. He did not care 
one jot for the good of the Netherlands; all he con- 
sidered was his own desire for power. 

Yet this was the ruler whom William had chosen 
for the Low Countries, not because he either admired 
or respected him — he did not — but because at the 
time he could find no one better. Germany and 
England would not give substantial help; France, 
in the person of Anjou, was willing to do so, and in 
sheer despair the Prince of Orange accepted the offer. 
At the time he explained clearly that it was absolute 
necessity which drove him into the bargain with 
Anjou. 

"To speak plainly/' he said, "asking us to wait 
is very much as if you should keep a man three days 
without any food in the expectation of a magnificent 
banquet, should persuade him to refuse bread, and 
at the end of three days should tell him that the 
banquet was not ready, but that a still better one was 
in preparation. Would it not be better, then, that 

174 



False Francis 

the poor man, to avoid starvation, should wait no 
longer, but accept bread wherever he might find it? 
Such is our case at present/' 

During the autumn of this year (1581) the Duke of 
Anjou was in England wooing its fickle Queen, who 
finally refused to marry him, so tradition says, be- 
cause he was so exceedingly ugly. So in February 
the Duke returned to the Netherlands, and landed at 
Flushing, accompanied by the Earl of Leicester, 
Lord Howard, Sir Philip Sidney, and other dis- 
tinguished Englishmen from Elizabeth's court. 

As the Duke stepped from his vessel he was met 
by the Prince of Orange, with Espinoy, and delegates 
from the States-General. Bells clanged, guns roared, 
people shouted — all was joy and gay welcome. Little 
did the people of Flushing guess how soon their cheers 
for this man would be turned to groans and hisses. 

After visiting the neighbouring town of Middel- 
burg the Duke set sail for Antwerp, oustide the walls 
of which his installation as sovereign Duke was to 
be held. The brilliant ceremony took place on 
February 17th, 1582, and was accompanied by all 
manner of pageantry and pomp. William of Orange 
himself laid the gorgeous mantle of the dukes of 
Brabant over the French Prince's shoulders. 

Anjou took oath to maintain the liberties of the 
Netherlands, and signed a compact which had been 
drawn up in readiness. By this document he was 
to forfeit his position if he did not rule according 
to Netherland charters, and was to uphold "the 
Religion" as the Estates directed. In various ways 
his authority was so limited that it was really the 
Estates, and not he, who held the actual ruling power. 

i7S 



William the Silent 

The Netherlands had learnt by very bitter lessons 
what might happen with an unfettered sovereign 
on the throne. 

The agreement with Anjou was known as the 
Treaty of Bordeaux, because it had been first drawn 
up in that town. 

The Duke was now ruler of Brabant, but he had 
not as yet been accepted by Holland and Zeeland. 
The Prince of Orange had, the year before, tempo- 
rarily accepted the Stadtholderate of the northern 
provinces, and they were determined that he should 
now become their count and that the title should 
descend to his children. 

William had always protested against this plan, 
for he hoped that the sovereignty would be conferred 
on Anjou. But just after the latter had been made 
Duke of Brabant, William had a dangerous illness, 
about which I shall tell you more fully in the next 
chapter. While he lay for weeks between life and 
death, Holland and Zeeland felt more strongly than 
ever how little they could afford to lose the Father 
of their Country. 

Consequently, as soon as the Prince had recovered, 
they again pressed him extremely hard to accept the 
Countship. Though still very unwilling — for he 
believed that Anjou with his powerful French con- 
nections would be of more service to the country — 
the two provinces would take no refusal from him, 
and in the end he was obliged to agree. 

In August, 1572, a month after the inauguration 
of Anjou, who was by now also Duke of Guelderland 
and Lord of Friesland, William the Silent was formally 
installed as hereditary Count of Holland and Zeeland. 

176 



False Francis 

In spite of all he had gained, Anjou was anything 
but contented. He was jealous of Orange's influence 
and popularity with the people, and declared that 
he, Francis Duke of Anjou, only brother of the 
King of France, would no longer play second fiddle 
to "a beggarly German nobleman." 

He arranged with his friends that his French 
soldiers should divide into parties and seize a number 
of important Netherland towns at the same moment, 
while he himself would secure Antwerp. 

Somehow rumors of the plot leaked out, and the 
captain of the Antwerp guard sent a warning to the 
Prince of Orange. William consented that extra 
precautions should be taken for the safety of the city, 
but he had so little belief in the rumours that he 
also sent a message to the Duke, telling him of the 
treachery of which some suspected him. 

The false Frenchman sent back a solemn and in- 
dignant reply, in which he declared that he would 
never hurt Antwerp, but was willing to shed his last 
drop of blood in her defence. 

On the 17th of January, 1583, Anjou and Orange 
exchanged visits in the morning, and then went 
home, to opposite ends of the city, for their noonday 
meal. Between twelve and one all the citizens were 
at dinner too, and the streets were almost deserted. 

As Anjou sat at meat in his lodgings, a messenger 
was ushered in, bringing a letter which he handed to 
the Duke. The latter had no sooner read it than he 
sprang up in great excitement, and ordered horses 
to be fetched instantly. Then, followed by a couple 
of hundred of his retinue, he rode out of Antwerp 
by the Kipdorp gate. 

177 



TJ^illiam the Silent 

He crossed the drawbridge unmolested by the 
guard, who, since his passionate message to the Prince 
of Orange, had lost their suspicions of him, but when 
he reached the farther side he halted his horse. His 
troops were behind him, and rising in his stirrups 
he waved his hand to them. 

"There is your city, my lads!" he cried. "Go 
and take possession of it." 

Without a backward glance he spurred on his steed 
and galloped away to Borgerhout, a village a short 
distance beyond the wall, where he had stationed a 
large body of his French troops. 

The coward left terrible things behind him, for 
no sooner had he spoken than the soldiers fell upon 
the guard at the gate, killing them all. Leaving a 
sufficient force behind them to defend the entrance, 
they next galloped through the streets of the city, 
on massacre intent. 

"Captured town, captured town!" they shouted 
as they rode. "Long live Anjou! Long live the 
mass! Kill, kill, kill!" 

Kill they did, in the most brutal fashion, rushing 
into the burghers' houses, murdering the inhabitants 
and seizing all the valuables they could find. At 
first the citizens were taken utterly by surprise, but 
as soon as they recovered from the shock they made a 
desperate resistance. 

In that dreadful hour creeds were forgotten, and 
papist and heretic joined hands to defend their 
homes from the mad French soldiery. They fought 
with any weapons that came to hand, or, if they had 
none, hurled tiles and furniture on their enemies, to 
such good effect that they killed over fifteen hundred 

178 



False Francis 

Frenchmen. In the midst of the turmoil Orange 
arrived hurriedly from his house on the outskirts 
of Antwerp. As usual, all his influence was used on 
the side of peace, and he did everything he could to 
persuade the infuriated citizens that the whole affair 
was only a misunderstanding. 

It was so evidently an act of planned treachery 
that for once the people refused to listen to Father 
William, and only ceased fighting because the false 
soldiers were by this time completely defeated. The 
French Fury, as this outbreak was called, destroyed 
the last vestige of confidence in Anjou. Instead of 
making him master of the country, it was the be- 
ginning of the end of his Netherland career. 



179 



They have ruled us for a hundred 
years, 
In truth I know not how, 
But though they be fain of mastery, 
They dare not claim it now. 

Henry Newbolt 



CHAPTER XXVII: The Stroke 
of the Assassin 

TIE Ban which Philip II had put upon the 
Prince of Orange in 1580 had not been 
without effect. The King of Spain had 
made it lawful and praiseworthy for any man to 
deliver him the Prince's body alive or dead, and the 
Catholic priests had declared anyone a martyr who 
should accomplish the black deed. 

Unscrupulous men were not slow in making the 
attempt when they were led to believe that riches, 
nobility and heavenly glory might be gained by the 
murderer of William of Orange. More than one 
plot was hatched, but though the Prince was sur- 
rounded by spies and dogged by assassins he escaped 
unharmed until the spring of 1582, three or four 
months before the terrible French Fury, which I 
told you about in the last chapter. 

One Sunday in March, the Prince, after going to 
service in the morning, came home to dinner, bring- 
ing the French ambassador, Count Hohenlohe and 
several other guests to share the family meal, at which 
his son Maurice and two of his nephews were also 
present. All the company were gay and cheerful, 
many tales were told, and they sat a long time over 
the dessert. 

When the meal ended William led the way from 
the large dining hall to his own private rooms, and 
stopped as he went to show his guests the beauty 
of a piece of tapestry which hung just inside the 
doorway leading to an ante-room. As he paused 
before the needlework a poorly clad youth of Spanish 

181 



William the Silent 

aspect darted forward from within the ante-room, 
and fired a pistol at the Prince's head. 

The bullet entered William's neck just under the 
right ear and passed through his mouth and jaw, 
dislodging two teeth. 

In a moment the room was in confusion. Orange 
did not fall at once, but stood a few seconds, so 
blinded by the smoke and dazed by the shock that 
at first he hardly knew what had happened. When 
he realized that he had been shot and believed himself 
to be dying, his first thought was one of mercy for 
his murderer. 

"Do not kill him," he said; "I forgive him my 
death/ 5 Then to his French guests he added, "Alas, 
what a faithful servant his Highness loses in me!" 

His words of mercy were too late to save the 
assassin, for already thirty-three sword-stabs, given 
by William's friends and servants, had pierced his 
body, and he lay dead at his victim's feet. 

The Prince was helped to bed, where his wound was 
examined by the surgeons. It was dangerous, but 
there w T as a hope of his recovery. The pistol had been 
fired at such close quarters that the fire from it had 
cauterized or burnt the wound in a way which had 
stopped dangerous bleeding from the veins. 

Young Maurice, who was not yet fifteen, behaved 
with the coolness and wisdom of a clear-headed man. 
He ordered the body of the murderer to be searched, 
in order to discover evidence as to who had engaged 
him to shoot down Orange. Many of those present 
believed that Anjou and the French were at the 
bottom of the vile deed, but Maurice quickly found 
that all the papers in the dead man's pockets were 

182 



The Stroke of the Assassin 

written in Spanish. He at once sent a servant back 
to the company, to show the documents and prove 
that the French party were innocent. 

It turned out that the attempt on the Prince's life 
was a private plot, hatched by Caspar d'Anastro, 
a Spanish merchant in Antwerp. His business had 
been doing very badly, and he was attracted by the 
large sum offered in the Ban for the murder of William 
the Silent. He was not brave enough to risk his own 
skin in the venture, so he arranged with his cashier, 
Venero, that an apprentice named Jean Jaureguy 
should be entrusted with the deed. 

Jaureguy was a fervent Catholic who believed 
that the world would gain by the death of that arch- 
heretic, the Prince of Orange, so when his master 
offered him nearly three thousand crowns if he would 
murder Orange, he willingly undertook to do so. 
After confessing to a priest, who gave him absolution 
for the crime he was about to commit, Jaureguy 
set forth on his mission. How he discharged it we 
have already seen. 

Anastro escaped to Calais, but Venero and the 
priest paid for their share in the plot with their lives. 
The States-General intended to execute them with 
horrible tortures, but Orange wrote from his sick 
bed begging that they might be granted the mercy 
of a quiet death. 

The great patriot leader did not die, though news 
of his death flew over Europe, but for weeks he had 
a hard fight for life. He was forbidden to talk, for 
fear of reopening the wound, but his active brain 
could not rest now, any more than it had done when 
he was stricken with fever in the camp near Leyden 

183 



M^illiam the Silent 

twelve years before. He lay on his bed speechless, 
but writing messages and instructions incessantly. 

The great danger of the injury lay in loss of blood, 
which, owing to the position of the wound, could not 
be stopped by bandages without choking the patient. 
At last, when the Prince's own doctors were in despair, 
Anjou's physician found a way out of the difficulty. 
He discovered that a man's thumb pressed firmly 
on the wound would stop the flow of blood without 
hindering the invalid's breathing. 

So he arranged that day and night a servant was 
to sit beside the Prince, holding a thumb on the 
wound, until all fear of bleeding had ceased. Prom 
that moment William began slowly to recover health 
and strength. 

The attack on him, and the long suspense which 
followed it, had been a terrible shock to his family. 
Princess Charlotte fainted again and again on hearing 
the news, and a letter from the eldest daughter, 
Marie, to her uncle at Dillenburg, paints a vivid 
picture of those dreadful weeks. 

4 'Here we have been in great terror, thinking my 
lord must die," she wrote in April. "A fortnight 
after the shooting he had such a bleeding from a 
vein that was slightly grazed, that we gave up all 
hope. The hemorrhage lasted several days. He 
resigned himself to death, and bidding us all good- 
night, said, 'It is all over with me. 5 

"You cannot believe how troubled we were to see 
my lord in such pain, without being able to relieve 
him. 

"Never shall I forget that day. But he has been 
saved by a miracle. There has been no hemorrhage 

184 



The Stroke of the Assassin 

now for fourteen days, and the doctors and barbers 
[the barbers were the surgeons of the sixteenth 
century] think he will be completely restored to 
health. He has to keep perfectly still, and is not 
allowed to speak more than is necessary. . . . The 
doctors forbid my lord doing any business at present. 
I wish it were possible for your Excellency to see how 
my lord is changed and emaciated. There is really 
nothing on him but skin and bones. . . • " 

Fortunately this state of weakness did not last. 
The Prince was quite out of danger and on the road 
to recovery when a second and very sad blow befell 
the family. 

The Princess, who was never very strong, had been 
so weakened and upset by the shock of her husband's 
dangerous wound, that when a fever attacked her 
at the end of April she had no strength to fight it. 
On May 5th, three days after a solemn thanksgiving 
service for the Prince's recovery, she died, leaving 
six motherless little daughters, the youngest only 
three months old. 

William almost had a relapse when he learnt the 
news, for he had loved his good wife very dearly and 
her death was a great grief to all the family. 

The joy in Holland and Zeeland on Orange's 
recovery was so great, that, as I mentioned in the 
last chapter, he was obliged to accept permanently 
the Countship of these two provinces, which he had 
so often refused. He was never formally installed 
as Count, as Anjou had been in Brabant, for death 
interfered before the necessary documents had been 
drawn up and signed. 

After the French Fury, when Anjou was distrusted 

185 



William the Silent 

all through the country, the States of Brabant wished 
to make Orange their Duke. He, however, considered 
that the title still belonged to the French Prince, and 
refused to accept it. 

He acted from the best of motives, but probably 
it would have been better for the country if he had 
been more ambitious for himself. He made a vain 
attempt to patch up peace between Brabant and 
the Duke, but Anjou's day in the Netherlands was 
over, and in June, 1583, he went back to France and 
never returned. 

In the spring of this same year William the Silent 
married his fourth wife, Louise, widow of Charles de 
Teligny. She was the daughter of Admiral Coligny, 
the Huguenot leader, and when only seventeen had 
lost both her father and her husband in the Massacre 
of Saint Bartholomew. 

William brought her home to the Prinsenhof, 
his house in Delft, and there, at the beginning of 
1584, his youngest child, a boy, was born. He was 
christened Frederic Henry, and afterward became a 
famous man, the right hand of his elder brother, 
Prince Maurice. 



1 86 



I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills, 
I knew thee apt to pity, brave to endure; 
In peace or war a Roman full equipped. 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

CHAPTER XXVIII: A Great 
Man^s Death 

DURING the year 1583 the Prince of Parma 
was by no means idle, and both in warfare 
and by bribery his cause made progress. 
Anjou's treason at the time of the French Fury 
had left a number of towns exposed to the Spanish 
attack, and Parma, seizing the opportunity, captured 
them one by one. 

Zutphen was betrayed by Orange's own brother- 
in-law, Count van den Berg, who had succeeded John 
of Nassau as governor of Guelderland, and Bruges 
was handed over to Parma by the Duke of Aerschot's 
son. Ghent, too, almost made terms with Parma, 
but was saved to the cause by William's persuasions. 
Ypres, in Flanders, was forced to surrender to the 
Spaniards after a long siege. But a quicker method 
than conquest was to rid Farnese of his arch-foe, 
William the Silent. 

As I have said, the Prince had settled his family 
in the Prinsenhof, a roomy old house in sleepy Delft. 
It was an unimposing dwelling built round a square 
courtyard and overlooking one of the tree-lined canals 
so common then and to-day. Just across the way 
was the large, bare town church. 

In the spring of 1584 quite a large household was 
collected in the Prinsenhof, for nowadays William 
was more often at home than formerly, and liked to 
have all his family about him. There was his young 

187 



William the Silent 

wife, with her baby boy, and "our girls, big and 
little," from Marie, who was now not far from thirty, 
to little three-year-old Emilie. Philip William had 
been long years in Spain, and Maurice was a student 
at Leyden University, but the Delft family circle 
was swelled by William's sister, the Countess of 
Schwartzburg, and various nephews and nieces who 
were for the time being under the Prinsenhof s 
hospitable roof. 

The effects of the King of Spain's Ban had been 
far-reaching, for since Orange had been wounded by 
Jaureguy two years previously, as many as four other 
people had tried to murder him. So the early summer 
months at Delft, though not very busy ones (for 
William was waiting till he should be formally created 
Count of Holland and Zeeland) were full of anxiety. 
None knew when the Father of his Country might be 
struck down by murderous hands. 

Early in July the news of the Duke of Anjou's 
death was brought to Delft. The messenger was an 
insignificant-looking young man who had been at 
Delft two months earlier, seeking to enter the Prince's 
service. 

He had then told the Prince's secretary that he was 
a poor, orphaned Calvinist from Burgundy, Francois 
Guion by name, whose parents had fallen victims 
to the Huguenot persecutions. He himself had 
endured many sufferings for "the faith," and had 
finally made his way to Holland, so that he might, 
to use his own words, "remain where he could wor- 
ship God without fear of death." 

Guion, as he called himself, appeared to be an 
earnest young Protestant who attended sermons 

1 88 



A Great Man^s Death 

regularly, and William befriended him with the 
kindness he always showed to those in distress. He 
little knew that Franocis Guion, the persecuted 
Calvinist, was really a violently devoted Catholic 
named Balthasar Gerard, who for years had been 
seeking an opportunity to kill him, Orange, the arch- 
heretic and rebel. Gerard firmly believed that the 
greatest service he could do the world was to send 
William the Silent out of it. 

For several weeks after his first arrival in Delft 
Balthasar was allowed to be in and out of the 
Prinsenhof, and during this time he grew to know 
the house and the ways of the family. Then Orange 
upset all his plans by sending him on a mission to 
Cambray, in the train of the Seigneur van Schoonval, 
a Flemish noble. 

Gerard knew no peace until Fate, in the shape 
of the Duke of Anjou's death, sent him back to 
Delft. The Prince wished for particulars of the 
Duke's last hours, and Gerard was instructed to re- 
turn to Holland with dispatches. 

One summer morning, early, he arrived at the 
Prinsenhof, and delivered his letters. Orange was 
still in bed, and after reading the dispatches he 
ordered that the messenger should be ushered into 
his sleeping chamber, as he wished to ask him some 
questions. 

If Balthasar had been armed there is no doubt that 
he would have shot the Prince then and there; as 
it was, he was dismissed from the room when he had 
answered the Prince's questions regarding Anjou. 

He loitered about the Prinsenhof all day, and when 
a sergeant of the guard asked his business, he replied 

189 



William the Silent 

that he was anxious to go to a service in the church 
across the canal, but was so poor that he had no 
shoes or stockings fit to go in. This distressing tale 
came to the ears of Orange, who ordered his steward 
to give the man twelve crowns. 

With this money so kindly bestowed on him by 
the man he meant to murder, Balthasar Gerard 
bought pistols and bullets with which to kill his 
benefactor. This was on Monday, July 9th. Then 
he continued to loiter about the house, and awaited 
a second opportunity. 

It was not long in coming. William and his family 
dined in a large banqueting hall on the ground floor 
of the Prinsenhof. It was reached from the rest 
of the house by a rather dark, winding staircase, and 
as the family came down the steps on Tuesday, 
July 10th, Gerard pressed forward and asked the 
Prince a question. 

Louise de Coligny, who was beside her husband, 
was struck by Gerard's excited manner, and asked 
who he was. 

"Only a person who has come for a passport/' 
replied William carelessly, as he passed into the 
dining hall. 

"Never have I seen so villainous a countenance," 
said the Princess uneasily. 

However William thought nothing of the matter, 
and was more cheerful than usual all through dinner. 
His wife, sister, three of his daughters and one guest 
were at the meal, but as they rose from table and 
crossed the hall several other gentlemen arrived 
to see the Prince, and he talked with them as he 
went toward the staircase. 

190 







fa 

O 



G 



A Great Man^s Death 

He had reached the second stair, moving slowly, 
when Balthasar Gerard, who had hidden himself in 
a deep, dark archway close at hand, darted forward 
and fired three bullets into the Prince's body. 

William tottered back, exclaiming in French, "My 
God, have mercy on my soul! My God, have mercy 
on this poor people!" and fell back upon the stairs, 
supported in the arms of his steward. He never 
spoke again, except to murmur a faint "yes" when 
his sister asked him if he commended his soul to Jesus 
Christ. 

He was carried to a couch in the dining hall, and 
here, a few minutes later, in the arms of his wife and 
sister, his great soul passed away. He died, as he 
had lived, in the service of his country. 

Meanwhile, as soon as the deed was accomplished, 
the murderer fled for his life through a side door at 
the foot of the staircase. He had provided himself 
with bladders with which to swim the moat, but 
before he could reach the water he was seized and 
taken back to the house of death. He did not attempt 
to deny his guilt, but gloried in the deed. 

At least we may say of this insignificant-looking 
Gerard that he was a brave man. The kindly voice 
that had begged mercy for Jaureguy and those 
who helped him was for ever silent now, and in the 
national horror at the loss of the great leader Gerard 
was tortured in a dreadful fashion. Before execution 
his right hand was burnt off, but he endured his agony 
with heroism. 

The nation vented some of its first fury in its 
treatment of Orange's murderer, but all through the 
country the sense of loss and desolation was terrible. 

191 



William the Silent 

People felt that they had indeed lost a father, and 
the very children wept piteously for " Father William/ ' 
while the man from whom Gerard had bought his 
weapons killed himself when he learnt the news. 

William the Silent was buried on August 3rd, 
1584, within a stone's throw of his home, in the old 
church he had seen daily from the windows of the 
Prinsenhof. 

His cause did not die with him; it was too great a 
one for that. His sons, Maurice, the boy student, 
and the baby, Frederic Henry, grew up to carry on 
and complete his work of building up an independent 
Netherlands. Frederic Henry left children from 
whom Queen Wilhelmina, who now wears the Dutch 
crown, is descended, and her daughter, little Princess 
Juliana, received her name in loving memory of the 
good old mother whose training helped Orange to be 
the man he was. 

The name of William the Silent will never die; 
the nation he built up out of struggle and defeat is 
his best memorial, for it can never forget him. If 
you ever go to Holland you will see his tomb at Delft, 
and you will realize in every word spoken of him 
that to all true Hollanders he is still the Father of 
their Country. 

After more than three hundred years, he finds 
a fitting epitaph in the words of Robert Louis 
Stevenson, another unconquerable hero: 

The immense and brooding spirit still 

Shall quicken and control. 
Living, he was the land, and dead, 

His soul shall be her soul. 



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